Product Reviews

Kitting out your PC with all the software required to make it useful can be expensive. The cheapest version of Microsoft Office costs around £300. A good photo editor will set you back around £70, while anti-virus and other vital security software can cost £30-50. Before you know it, you've spent

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more on software than it cost you to buy the PC. It's barmy - or so Woolworths seems to think. The venerable vendor of unnecessary plastic objects has brought out a range of own-brand software, including such essentials as an office suite and an anti-virus program. No title costs more than £25, and most are much cheaper. We filled our basket and tried them all.

The idea behind this program is cunningly simple. The software consists of a number of maths and English exercises and some games. To play a game, your child (or you, if you're desperately bored) must first complete an exercise and correctly answer a given number of questions. After a couple of levels of the game, they must answer more questions to continue. There are just two flaws with this concept. One, answering questions in breaks between computer games is probably not an ideal way to learn. Two, the games are rubbish.