Budgets dictate that often a hardware purchase is curtailed more by the emptiness of a bank account than any other deciding factor. Speakers, alongside keyboards, monitors and mice, tend to be among the first to be compromised in this way, as they are the kinds of hardware people are less inclined to fuss over. Thus it's inevitable that many hunting a 2.1 speaker bargain will head towards this £25 Logitech set-up.

Early signs, however, weren't promising. There's an element of 'you get what you pay for' here, with a cheap-feel wired remote to control volume and plug headphones into (as well as switching the system off and on), and a lack of any substantive connectivity options. The usual cable from sound card, MP3 player or music system is all you get, and the supplied one isn't that long anyway. Make no mistake: these are budget speakers, designed to do a simple and relatively inflexible job.

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And yet they do it well, for the X-210s - in spite of their modest specifications - don't pull their punches. Boasting two satellites with 5W RMS apiece and a subwoofer offering a modest 15W, you wouldn't expect the audio output to be anything particularly special, yet the performance outstrips the price tag here.

Sure, we're not talking anything to plug any kind of demanding audio or video system into, but for a good set of 2.1 speakers to hook up to a desktop or laptop PC the X-210s are more than up to the job. You might even willingly introduce them to your MP3 player.

We tested them across a variety of uses, primarily movies, games and music. Particularly on the latter two, the performance was very good. The subwoofer has a solid amount of meat to it and even as we increased the volume the audio held its definition. Movies worked well, too, but we simply had more success enjoying ourselves with Crysis: Warhead, which sounded strong and happily scared the cat. Output was crisp with real clarity to it and the explosions were tasty enough for our purposes.

Aesthetically sound (ho ho), even if they do feel quite light and economical, the X-210 set-up would easily complement a budget or mid-range PC set-up. They're no match for premium 2.1 speakers, with the limits shown up as we threw Armageddon at them (the film, not literal Armageddon). Compared to our trusty Creative 2.1s, this is where the X-210s struggled. But they are good value for money and turned around our initial expectations. A solid audio bargain.

A real bargain. While no home cinema replacement, the X-210s punch above their price weight as good, solid PC speakers that, at a push, you might even connect to your MP3 player.