Carrera has spent the budget on this machine in the places where it counts. So, for instance, there's a 17-inch Hansol monitor attached to it, which gives a sharp, well-defined picture on its near-flat face. The keyboard and mouse are from KeyTronics and Microsoft respectively, and are the same models provided by Carrera on much more expensive systems.

The company fits a 10-speed DVD-ROM drive, too, with a 12.6GB hard drive for permanent storage. The processor is a 533MHz Celeron, which doesn't have quite the raw speed of the Big Red system, but still gives a good account of itself. It's backed by 64MB of memory, which is adequate, and sits in an MicroATX system board.

While this means the case on the machine can be neat and small, it does restrict expansion, as there are no ISA expansion slots and only three PCI ones, though they're all unoccupied. Sound comes from the Intel 810 chipset and feeds to a better than average pair of Altec Lansing speakers.

Graphics are also provided by the Intel 810 and are fine for general business applications but not up to much in the 3D games department. Overall, this is a well balanced machine with good performance and uses a sensible combination of components.