NEC's I-Select ML3 has been designed to be all things to all people; the chassis allows you to use it as a slim-line desktop, or as a thin midi-tower system.

NEC uses Intel's 845 chipset in the ML3 PL1700, which allows it to use cheap SDRAM support for the 1.7GHz P4 instead of the vastly more expensive RAMBUS solution, the downside being the much reduced memory bandwidth offered by SDRAM. Having said that it is doubtful you would ever notice too much of a difference when using normal office applications.

Usefully the ML3 PL1700 comes with four USB ports, split equally between the rear I/O panel and the front bezel. There's also a 10/100 PCI Ethernet card. Expansion, though, is almost non-existent, with no spare drive bays and with the network card occupying one of the two PCI slots, so card upgrades will have to be carefully considered. The 15-inch NEC Multisync flat panel is powered by a 32MB ATI Radeon VE AGP card that provides a useful 1,024 pixels by 768 pixels native resolution.

Storage is provided by a fast 40GB 7,200rpm Seagate drive, making the quick movement of large amounts of data relatively easy, while the optical drive is a bit of a surprise - a Samsung DVD-CD/RW that is capable of 4/4/32-speed CD and 4-speed DVD speeds.

NEC supplies this system with a 3 year on-site warranty and a guaranteed NBD response time, reinforcing the idea that it's a serious business tool that just happens to be much smaller than conventional desktop PCs.