Thanks so much for your responses. Sorry for the delay in coming back but the Xperian has had other adventures and I have been on holiday in Carinthia.
Sounds lazy, but I haven't done a full spec on the Xperian - the reason being that is is back with its owner who lives 100 miles away from me. Well. I say back with the owner, but its adventure didn't end there. After we received it back from HiGrade and returned it to owner, we checked it was OK before leaving her home, having put in no additional programs other than Norton AV and restored her link with Tiscali ISP. We disabled internet access so she couldn't access the Net and said if the computer behaved itself we would collect it and connect to our own Broadband network to download SP2 and Norton virus updates and anti-spyware. Well. after we departed she played one of her CDs, next morning she tried to play it again and the computer froze. So, back to the manufacturers it went (they arrange collection and delivery). It was duly returned with the comment that it had a deep seated virus which they had had trouble removing and that they had put in an extra program to co-ordinate and run the other programs smoothly. Well, she unpacked it, set it up and before it got to the Microsoft welcome screen, it froze again. So what she is going to say to HiGrade I daren't imagine. She is totally fed up with it. Manufacturers had offered to buy it back for £200 or alternatively they advised her to flog it on e-bay!
I have sent owner details about the UK small claims court as I think she may be entitled to more than £200 on the grounds that the computer has never worked satisfactorily. It was a new concept in 2003 and HiGrade no longer make them. I have posted a similar enquiry on a couple of other forums and nobody knows of them. The Xperian is a media center with television receiver, DVD player and computer with an integral flat screen. Methinks the spec is not sufficient to run all its functions and it will never, ever work as it has a design fault. If anyone is interested in seeing such a beautiful but useless object there is a photo and review at
http://www.pcplus.co.uk/reviews/default.as...subsectionid=34
Once again, many thanks to you all!