The most noticeable features of this system are the three digits after the pound sign. £399 plus VAT is a fairly exceptional price for a PC, but it's even more unusual when you look at the specification of the machine. Starting with a 700MHz Pentium III, not a cut-price Celeron or Duron, and adding in 256MB of main memory and a 20GB hard drive, you'll see that it has the potential of being a strong, mainstream contender.

Those are actually the best aspects of the machine and work well together. What isn't quite so hot is the graphics sub-system. The graphics come from the system board - not a bad design in itself - and they use Nvidia TNT2 circuitry. However, the TNT2 is an old design and in this incarnation it uses 32MB of the system's main memory as graphics memory, a technique known as Shared Memory Architecture (SMA).

SMA has a dramatic effect on graphics performance and the Promedia 5700 suffers as a result. The 3DMark 2001 benchmark, an independent test of 3D graphics performance, scored just 300 on this machine and displayed corrupted graphics during the run. 300 is a very low score; a typical result from a capable 3D machine would be nearer 2,000.

The graphics signal runs to a 17-inch monitor, which is again surprising in a machine at this price point, but the screen picture was fuzzy at a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels and wasn't pin-sharp even at the lower 800 x 600 setting. This isn't a machine for the games enthusiast.

In other ways, though, there are lots of uses to which you could happily put the Promedia, saving considerably over similar systems from other sources. For general office duties there is little to criticise and the 10/100 BaseT network connection built into the system board makes it a good choice as part of an inexpensive network. Used as a networked workstation, it could be good as an educational purchase too.

The 52-speed CD-ROM drive and floppy drive are near standard fittings these days. The modem, speakers and copy of WordPerfect Suite 8, though, along with the pre-installed Windows 98SE, make this a machine which can do a lot straight out of the box. As long as you don't try to push it into tasks it can't handle, Bell Science's Promedia 5700 is a lot of PC for very little money.

It's not often you see a complete PC offered for less than £400 and one with this specification is as good as some costing twice the price. Although the graphics circuitry and monitor are weak areas in its design, in most other respects the Promedia 5700 is excellent value for money.