Christmas is just around the corner and the high street shops are bursting with special offers on computer equipment. But beware.

Sadly, many "bundle" offers are a complete waste of money so this year, evolution editor Ray Hatley has put together our guide on what to look for and what to avoid this Christmas.

Lots of high street stores are now advertising cheap computers.

A Pentium 1000 CPU with all the bells and whistles, including scanner, printer, digital camera and a great big bag of software, sounds like a real bargain, especially when the ad tells you there will be nothing to pay for the next five years.

Sadly, a computer bargain at Christmas time is about as likely as Santa Claus, the Bogey Man and the Easter Bunny all rolled into one.

Avoid most bundled software. Many High Street computer shops offer a pile of software as an incentive to buy their products.

Look closely and you will almost certainly find the titles on offer are so old that some won't even run properly on the super fast machines available today.

Some of the titles are completely obsolete and others should be taken out and burned because they are so boring.

Avoid bundled printers unless all you want to do is to print a small number of really basic documents.

Bundled printers are invariably slow and have limited colour facilities.

They rarely offer photographic quality print and any attempt to produce a photograph from a digital file will almost certainly be a serious disappointment.

Avoid bundled digital cameras if you want to print out your pictures.

A camera fitted with a sub 2.1 megapixel image capture device it will not allow you to produce high-quality printed images and you will be disappointed with the results.

A reasonable camera costs around £500 and is unlikely to be bundled with a PC costing less than £1000.

Look for a bundled scanner, providing it is a named brand, as the price of scanners has dropped dramatically in recent years. Bundles can deliver good value for money here.

Look for Microsoft Office software and do not accept Lotus SmartSuite as an alternative.

Very few people use Lotus software because it simply isn't good enough to compete with MS Office products.

Look for a Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard. Top quality peripherals make computing a much more pleasant experience.

Failing Microsoft then look for anything with the Logitech brand name, especially the Logitech Cordless desktop set which is absolutely brilliant. Bet you can't find one in a bundle, though!

Look for Canon, HP or Epson printers in your bundles as they are likely to last longest and to have supplies available in a few years' time.

There is nothing worse than owning a printer which works perfectly but you can't buy ink for it. Remember: Nothing is free!

If you want software for your new computer then go and buy exactly what you want from a proper software dealer because it will almost certainly be cheaper in the long run than getting a huge bundle of rubbish.

If you want good quality hardware then buy it from an accredited dealer and check what guarantees are on offer before you part with any money.