Unless we're completely missing the point, and we're quite sure that we're not, the Toshiba Equium 2000 is possibly the most pointless desktop PC we've ever seen. To get straight to the point (or lack of it), Toshiba have attempted to use their market-leading laptop technology in a desktop machine and somehow produced a PC which delivers the worst of both worlds.

First, we'll get to the most obvious point: this is a 466Mhz Celeron machine with 64MB of 66MHz SDRAM, a 6GB hard drive and a generally low specification all round. Quite acceptable for an entry level machine, like HP's sub-£500 Brio, but this particular system comes in at a whopping £1,775 (exc. VAT). What were they thinking? You could buy three Brio's and still have enough cash left to go on a two week holiday to the Mediterranean resort of your choice for that price. Including beer.

Like many laptop machines, the Equium 2000 features a single drive bay which can house either the floppy drive or the 24-speed CDROM drive - but not both. In laptop machines this saves space and weight. In a desktop machine it's one of the worst ideas we've seen. We'd love to have been in the room when they we're talking that one through.

As you'd expect from such a machine, there are no expansion slots of any kind, but there are a couple of PC Card slots, allowing you to fit laptop peripherals which generally cost a lot more than their desktop counterparts.

Graphics are produced by an ATI Rage 128VR processor with 8Mb of video memory, which offers reasonable performance for applications but not a lot of 3D acceleration. The machine is fitted with a 15 inch TFT flat panel screen, which adds tremendously to the cost of the system and offers a lower quality picture than you'd get from a conventional CRT monitor.

There's no internal modem in this system but there is a 10/100 Ethernet adapter which suggests that Toshiba expect the machine to find its way into corporates. We can't imagine many corporates being that free with their money, and we certainly wouldn't buy shares in any organisation foolhardy enough to buy the Equium 2000 in large numbers.

It's not just that the Equium 2000 is a badly designed machine, it's not just that it performs badly or that it can't be easily upgraded. The thing that bothers us the most about this machine is that somebody thought that not only was it worth bringing this machine to market, but that it was worth asking a ridiculously high price for it. Don't be at all surprised if this machine gets pulled very soon.