Somewhere in the world is a rubbish dump filled with all the computers that have tried, and failed, to deviate from the standard beige box design. After playing with the new idesign for a while, we can't help thinking this model may join that pile sometime soon.

The idesign is no miracle feat of engineering. Packard Bell has taken an ordinary desktop PC, stuffed it into a small case, turned it on its side and added a bit of colourful plastic.

There's nothing wrong with that in principle, but the way it has been done feels flimsy. Take the flaps at the front - these hide the CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive and the floppy drive. The CD-RW/DVD flap opens and closes in time with the motorised tray but the one in front of the floppy drive had to be forced by hand, accompanied by a crunching noise.

It's not all bad news, though. The USB ports at the front make it easy to plug in and unplug digital cameras and MP3 players without scrambling around in the back of the case.

Inside the case is an AMD 1GHz Duron processor. It's a capable budget processor but it seems a strange choice, bearing in mind the modest extra cost of a more muscular Athlon.

The rest of the specification consists of 128MB of memory and a 20GB hard disk. Graphics come courtesy of an integrated S3 Pro Savage chip. By today's standards, this is a fairly dreadful performer when it comes to games. It also requires a chunk of the main memory. Ours took 16MB but you can set it to 8MB or 32MB if you wish.

At the rear is the standard collection of ports and the only add-in card is a modem.

It is rare for us to play with a brand spanking new system that feels sluggish, but the Idesign really does. Simple tasks such as opening the Windows Control Panel cause the system to grind away unhappily. We put this down to the amount of memory installed - Windows XP really needs more. We'd be happy with this level of performance on an older machine but in a new PC costing this much, it's totally unacceptable.

There's a wireless keyboard, which is a bit difficult to type on as it's slightly smaller than usual, but the wireless mouse is nice. Be prepared to change the batteries from time to time, though.

The idesign is sold as a base unit only, with the monitor as an extra. Packard Bell sent its colour co-ordinated 15in LCD screen for this review. This displays an acceptable picture at a resolution of 1024 x 768. Unfortunately, it has an external power supply; a pity considering the sleek, slim design of the unit.

Packard Bell deserves credit for providing two colour posters that will help novices set up the idesign without trouble. There's also plenty of software, some of which is genuinely useful, such as Works 2000, Word 2000 and Photosuite 4 SE. Some of it, such as Mickey Saves The Day, is hardly useful, but it does mean you can play games on your computer straight away without having to buy extra software, which makes a nice change.

The idesign does not impress. Packard Bell has got a good basic idea, but we've seen a lot of those in the past. We doubt that this has the necessary quality to avoid joining the pile of PCs that weren't quite good enough to break the mould.

Contact
Packard Bell: 01628 512400
www.packardbell.co.uk ALSO CONSIDER

Sony Vaio LX-1