Acer’s Aspire M3200 looks like it could be one such lifestyle-preserving answer to this dreaded question. In the time it takes your Mum to make a nice hot cuppa, your Dad will have the PC out of the box, set up and purring quietly at the Vista Basic desktop. Well, provided you’re there to show them where the monitor plugs in – which they’ll need to purchase, as the M3200 ships sans display. It’s got a decent wireless mouse and keyboard though, as well as a very dinky pair of speakers. Before we delve inside the case, it’s worth noting that the Micro-ATX case itself is quite a tidy piece of work. It’s a neat little unit, if not exactly cutting-edge in its aesthetics, and has front-mounted card readers for numerous card formats, a micro Firewire port as part of the card reader, four USB slots and headphone/mic jacks. On the backside you’ll find HDMI and digital optical out, as well as the standard outputs such as USB and DVI-I.