Microsoft Works Suite 2005

We were disappointed that there's no easy way to save an image for use on the Web in Photo Premium, although it does have simple compression tools for sending your work by email. These use plain English descriptions for file sizes, so rather than pick 50 per cent JPEG compression of 16-bit GIF, you'd select small web view, thumbnail or large email view and be given instant feedback on how long each would take to download.

It's bundled with Picture It! Library 10, which is a shameless land-grab on Adobe Photoshop Album's territory. This will search your drives for images and then index them according to date and keywords, which will significantly speed up the task of finding your favourites, and is well integrated with Photo Premium, so editing whatever it finds takes nothing more than a couple of right-clicks.

Works Suite may not be pitched at business users, but that doesn't mean they should immediately pass it by. Certainly for anyone working from home, who can track the family finances in Money and whose kids can make best use of Encarta, it represents something of a bargain: remember you're getting the full version of Word XP and a decent productivity suite in Works. Before splashing out, though, consider the limitations of Works' basic database and whether you will need the power of Excel at some future point, in which case this may be a false economy.