One by-product of the general cheapening (in cost terms) of the technology surrounding the web is that home security options have opened up. For some time, specialist cameras have been out of the reach of the home user, but units such as the Compro VideoMate IP50 put that functionality at an affordable price.

It's worth noting from the off that Compro offers a version of this unit - the IP50W - that also supports wireless technology up to 802.11g standards: the IP50 reviewed here works via an Ethernet cable. That's an obvious restriction, although not an insurmountable one. And if you want wireless flexibility, then it's only a few quid extra.

Opening the box you find the camera itself, some screws to mount it with, the power supply, a network cable, a software CD and instructions. It's hard to grumble with that, and the package proves easy to get up and running.

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First things first, then: you need to plug the IP50 in and connect it to your network using that aforementioned Ethernet cable. At that point, out comes the software CD which needs to be run on your PC (the software is Windows only). This installs the ComproView utility on your computer, which the installation offers to have start by default whenever you switch your machine on.

Once comfortably loaded up, you run an IP scan for the camera and, if all goes to plan, it's detected and you can get going. We did hit a slight stumble here: on our Windows XP-based testbed machine, Compro's utility refused to find the camera at all, but when we then moved over to a Windows 7 machine on the same network, it had no problems at all. It appears that there was something on our Windows XP testbed that the Compro utility objected to, but we couldn't work out what it was, however how hard we tried.

No matter, as we switched to our other machine and loaded the main Compro package. Here you have options to activate the recording of footage based upon certain criteria (movement, for instance), and features such as these worked well. The software worked well throughout, in fact, and is easy to get to grips with. The camera itself also features two-way audio, remote monitoring and 16-channel surveillance support.

Right up to this point, the IP50 is something impressive. What lets it down slightly is the video quality of the camera. The footage that the unit picks up, even when the resolution is turned up (to 640 x 480), is a little rough, although it's perfectly adequate for the job in hand. If you're wondering where the compromise comes in exchange for the low price, then it's right there.

Yet for a small business or home, the IP50 is a fine piece of hardware that, once we got over the teething problems, worked decently enough. As part of a framework of security measures it could prove to be a useful purchase.

A useful device, although the quality of footage does betray the entry level price tag a little. It might be just what small businesses are looking for, however.