The units impressive light form factor conceals an Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 that runs at 2.2GHz with 2MB of L2 cache, 2GB of RAM, 256MB 8400GS graphics card with HDMI, a 360GB SATA hard drive, 16x dual layer SATA DVD±RW and a TV tuner. Interestingly, there’s no inbuilt Wi-Fi and in this age of wireless connectivity becoming standard in a lot of hardware, it’s disappointing to see it left out.

The front of the s3380a features a 15-in-1 card reader over four slots and can take almost every memory card you can think of, apart from microSD, which isn't really a problem if you have an adapter. This makes viewing your photos and video directly from your camera or video camera trouble-free as the drives automatically appear under My Computer as external devices. The DVD±RW drive is stealthed behind an over-sized plastic panel which feels like it'll eventually fall off after prolonged usage. A mini portable media bay located at the bottom of the case takes care of HP's own range of external hard drive devices if you happen to be the proud owner of such a product. Two USB ports and a headphone port round out the front feature and connectivity set.

The glossy piano black finish on the front panel of the s3380a, like all glossy piano black finishes, is a massive fingerprint and smudge magnet and requires some care to not get dirty.

The rear of the unit features a PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 mouse port (for those still hanging onto these legacy devices and are yet to move over to the much easier to use USB), digital audio out to connect to an external source, four rear USB ports, one Firewire port, audio ports (mic, in and out) and a 10/100 Ethernet port. It's a shame that HP only included a 10/100 Ethernet port as there may be some people out there that want Gigabit LAN connectivity.

The installed graphics card, despite being DirectX 10 compliant, is no gaming god and manages a score of 1613 3DMarks in 3DMark06. This ultimately means that it's more comfortable being a home theatre PC with its HDMI port or as a system for the very casual gamer rather than as a dedicated gaming only system. It also has a DVI port, although if you happen to have an older monitor with a VGA cable, HP also bundle a DVI to VGA adapter.

The included TV tuner is of the standard, run of the mill variety with antenna in, S-video, and left and right audio outputs. Since Windows Media Center is also installed with Vista Premium you can watch and record TV using the s3380a. A Windows Media Centre-friendly remote is also bundled with the s3880 and requires a separate IR receiver to be installed.

The s3380a is bundled with a cordless keyboard and mouse that is controlled out of the same USB receiver. For those lefties constantly feeling left out, the wireless mouse is ambidextrous, but is a tad heavier than most cordless mice on the market. While it’s comfortable to hold, clicking with the mouse feels slightly stiff and may get annoying after prolonged usage. The cordless keyboard feels like the keys have been transplanted from a laptop, if you prefer it that way. The layout of the keys is also non-conventional with the group of six keys above the cursor keys being re-arranged in a slightly awkward position, but doesn't take long to get used to.

One annoyance with the keyboard is that there are no light indicators to display whether Num Lock, Caps Lock or Scroll Lock is on. Frequent numpad users may accidentally turn Num Lock off in the midst of numpadding and go to the beginning or end of the page. This because 1, 3, 7 and 9 on the numpad also double as shortcut keys to End, Page Down, Home and Page Up respectively when Num Lock isn't on.

In operation, the s3380a lives up to its home theatre PC expectations and is more than capable of playing back high definition content without any issues. The system also remains relatively quiet so that your hi-def viewing is not disrupted by any annoying noises. It can also be used as a basic home PC for word processing and the Internet, as well as the odd game, but anything more like Crysis or AVCHD encoding from your video camera, and you’d be pushing it. This is shown in the relatively low PCMark 05 of 5404.

Some people will probably end up opting for a white box or a custom-configured system, rather than laying out the $1300 and going for the s3880a. But the s3380a is for those who are unfamiliar with building their own PC and want something that will work out of the box, which what exactly what HP is good at doing. And all in a slim stylish case that will blend into any living room.