PC for children - what spec?

[WhereamI]

Thinking about getting a pc for our dds this xmas. It will need to do iplayer well, google earth and such like, standard hmework and emailing, and possibly a bit of gaming. Has anyone any idea of the spec I will need? I am completely flummoxed by the choice. Wd prefer not to go over £400ish and it needs to include a monitor. Don't want a laptop.
Thanks

Any modern PC should be good enough for word processing and emailing. I wouldn't expect Google Earth to be too demanding, but I can't say I am any expert. Gaming and video are the areas that tend to demand higher specs.

I'd suggest a dual core processor and a minimum of 2GB RAM should give you reasonable performance on most tasks, but someone else will have to comment on what you need for reasonable gaming performance.

Given the budget, you won't have a vast choice anyway. A little work with Google found this HP for £300 plus monitor. To me it looks reasonable for the price, but I haven't been in the market for a while and I offer it more as a starting point for those with up to date knowledge than as a recommendation.

I should add that you will probably find more expertise in the "Geeky Stuff" forum.

thanks for your help