Packard Bell's latest PC looks like a fairly nondescript affair. The case is small and compact but featureless, having just two drive bays, a floppy disk drive and two USB 2 sockets on the front panel.

Inside the case, the 2.6GHz Pentium 4 processor and 512Mb of memory provide adequate performance, and although our Labs tests found the PC to under-perform, it's perfectly reasonable for day-to-day use. The 120Gb hard disk is more than enough for most home users and it will take a long time to fill up.

The monitor supplied is a neat-looking NEC 15in flat screen, which produces a sharp, well-defined picture. The only drawback is that both it and the PC are equipped with VGA connections rather than the more advanced DVI, which would have improved the picture quality even further. Nevertheless, the design of the monitor matches the case of the PC, which adds up to a professional-looking computer package.

The ATI Radeon 9200SE graphics card is more than capable of handling the latest 3D games, although you might have to turn off some of the more detailed graphics settings to get the games running at a decent speed.

A recordable DVD drive supports the DVD-R/RW standard but not DVD-RAM. The back of the PC houses the usual array of ports such as FireWire (for connecting to digital camcorders), USB 2 and network sockets. Here also lie the sound connectors and video plugs for connecting to a TV or VCR. Inside the case are too free PCI slots for adding more hardware later.

The supplied keyboard feels less sturdy than it ideally should, but it's perfectly fine in use, as are the supplied mouse and speakers. The PC comes pre-installed with Windows XP Home as well as a good selection of software, including Microsoft Works 7, music and photo software, games, internet and security programs, as well as some small utilities you'll probably find useful (such as QuickTime, RealPlayer and Acrobat Reader).

Contact: Packard Bell 0870 112 2334
www.packardbell.co.uk