Traditionally, the Budget Box on Ars Technica is all of the following things: versatile, capable, and extremely affordable. Budget in our minds has long meant a low-cost, yet capable box for your money, and certainly as a gaming machine, the Budget Box does all right. Think of it as a respectable budget gaming box, and you can understand why we throw in so many significant extras into the mix.
The Ultimate Budget Box tosses the gaming focus out the window, instead focusing on a bare-minimum budget system. To all those people clamoring for a minimalist Budget Box: this is it. Look around inside most corporate offices, where most computers need to handle a few Office documents and light Internet use. They don't need to be able to burn CDs or handle 3D-intensive games, but they do need to be reliable and affordable. Lots of consumers out there probably want a similar box—an appliance that lets them get onto the Internet, take care of e-mail, and create a few documents. For them, being able to burn a CD-RW would probably be nice, but anything beyond that is an extra. Low-cost, reliability, and quality are key.
___________
Read More / Source:
ars technica
