Labs

Very PC's ethos is to create environmentally friendly PCs that use as little electricity as possible. Each component inside the BE Premier has therefore been chosen more for its energy efficiency than its price/performance ratio.

That explains the presence of AMD's low-voltage Athlon 64 X2 BE 2400 processor. With each core clocked at 2.3GHz, the chip is designed for roles demanding low power consumption, such as in a laptop. From the same company, the ATI Radeon X1250 graphics chip on the motherboard can provide smooth video playback and sprightly web surfing but not the 3D gaming capability that a dedicated card would offer. On the plus side, a generous 2GB of RAM ensures that Vista Home Premium remains

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smooth and responsive.

Given its specialised brief, it's perhaps doing the BE Premier a disservice to criticise its relatively ponderous performance in our benchmark tests, but criticise we must. Only the tiny Philips returned lower 2D benchmarks. When it came to our Call of Duty 2 gaming test, the Very PC's 3D abilities also let it down. The motherboard graphics can handle Vista's fancy Aero Glass effects, but modern games are out of the question.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of good points. The wireless mouse and keyboard, from Cherry, exhibit a touch of style and quality that's lacking from most peripherals in this group. The bright and chunky 20 inch BenQ monitor is among the largest and highest-resolution displays here, and an excellent inclusion with a PC under £600.

Then again, the hard disk is a 100GB laptop-sized model, which by today's standards feels a little restrictive. And because laptop-sized disks are slower at reading and writing data than full-sized units, this doesn't help general performance.

If you're looking for a tidy system that doesn't take up too much space, the BE Premier offers more flexibility than an ultra-small PC such as the Philips, and its 'green' credentials are also attractive. But its rivals are undeniably more capable.