Focus Multimedia has got this down to a fine art. In Dinosaur Activity Studio, the company has plucked a product that you'd ordinarily not bother with and pumped it out with an attractive, impulse-purchase, £4.99 price tag. Couple that with ensuring Vista compatibility up to the recent Service Pack 1, and it's a quick and easy package that offers the potential to keep the anklebiters quiet for a modest outlay.

For us, though, things didn't get off to a good start. After a quick, easy installation, the program asked us if we wanted to run it full screen. Very thoughtful, thought we, as we selected 'no', expecting it to run in a window. Sadly not. Instead, it launched full screen but with a black border around the edges. Ho hum. Still, it was accompanied by some sharp graphics and lots of sounds of dinosaurs roaring in a generally terrifying manner, so that bit was all well and good (for the time being).

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The program then continued to grow on us. Clicking on the timeline feature, for instance, allows you to select a dinosaur and see where it fits in. Details then scroll up the screen while the roars continue in the background. You can print any of these details off, too, and it's all very simple to do.

Then we clicked on the mobile phone. Here - and isn't this a sign of the times - we could create a background for a mobile. There are various sizes to pick from, and while clear instructions on how to get the image from your PC to your mobile aren't forthcoming, that's unlikely to be an obstacle for your average eight-year-old.

The Themes option allows you to choose from a selection of desktop backgrounds and screensavers, and the games room featured some competent enough little games to play, although dinosaur solitaire has nothing to offer over the version that comes free with Windows!

The best part of the package is the print studio, though, and the option to paint and create dinosaurs. This is where the artistic creative juices are allowed to flow a little more, with a wealth of projects to tackle and dinosaur-related tat to belt out of your printer.

It's well presented and good fun to work with too, thanks to a simple interface. You can imagine your average dinosaur-obsessed child easily getting £5 of value out of the product, even if it might send your printer ink bill soaring.

In short, Dinosaur Activity Studio belies the limited first impressions and turns out to be a strong, interesting and well put together package for youngsters. That said, you might want to turn the speakers off after a while.

A great way to spend a fiver, on a good, rounded creativity package with plenty of dinosaur imagery and noise.