Budget articles

Having just three phones on the market has allowed Motorola to give each the time and polish needed for success. The Moto X's innovative contextual processing features made it a compelling flagship option, while the Moto G is arguably the best sub-$200 device you can buy. Motorola's budget model, the Moto E, aims to be the best option for $130, unlocked and off-contract. Better yet, you get stock Android, which means no bloatware and timely updates.

Nokia's first Android-powered phone is meant to slot in a new product segment between the low-end Asha feature phones and Lumia smartphones. Despite reading a few pieces on the Nokia X, nothing really prepared me for the first time I used it. Surely a handset released in 2014, even if it is at the lower end of the product tree, couldn't feel this unfinished.

Low-end desktop SoCs typically come soldered to motherboards, including AMD's 2011 Brazos platform as well as Intel's Bay Trail-D. AMD hopes to change that with its AM1 platform, which currently offers four APUs as well as a range of affordable motherboards. While checking out the new AM1 APUs, we have rounded up competing chips to give you a clearer picture of what is available in the budget CPU market.

Marking the introduction of its Maxwell architecture, Nvidia has targeted AMD's $150 Radeon R7 265 with the new GeForce GTX 750 Ti. With fewer cores being used to get more performance, Maxwell consumes less power and improves Kepler's performance per watt. Does that mean AMD's newly relaunched Radeon R7 265 could be in trouble considering it's essentially a slightly overclocked and steeply discounted HD 7850?

The Moto G is Motorola's biggest and best effort yet in conquering Android's entry-level market. It's not a handset meant to break records, but the 4.5-inch 720p display, Snapdragon 400 SoC and dual-SIM support (in certain models) will please the right crowds. Plus, at $179 for the 8 GB model and $199 for 16 GB, unlocked and off-contract, it certainly fits the definition of what an affordable smartphone should be.

Branded the Obsidian 350D, the newcomer crams its more expensive sibling's features into an affordable microATX package and sports the same clean, black brushed-aluminum finish, handy tool-free design and innovative cable management.

While the base 350D is available for around $90, a second edition goes for $110 that adds a side window. So how does Corsair budget Obsidian fair? Read on and find out.

The latest member of the Southern Islands family, the new Radeon HD 7790 is designed to fill the gap between the Radeon HD 7770 and 7850. Set to precisely target the $150 price tag, the HD 7790 should be an affordable solution that provides good value to gamers on a budget.

The HD 7790 is set to go head to head against the GeForce GTX 650 Ti, which represented the best value in this bracket. To sweeten the deal, AMD is also offering a free game bundle of Bioshock Infinite for a limited time.

Considering next-gen cards are still months away, we didn't expect to bring any more GPU reviews until the second quarter of 2013. However, we realized there was a gap in our current-gen coverage: triple-monitor gaming. In fact, it's been almost two years since we last stress tested games at resolutions of up to 7680x1600.

We're going to mix things up a little this time. Instead of using each camp's ultra-pricey dual-GPU card (or the new $999 Titan), we're going to see how more affordable Crossfire and SLI setups handle triple-monitor gaming compared to today's single-GPU flagships.

It's been over six months since Nvidia launched its Kepler architecture and we've finally seen the GTX 600 series enter more affordable price brackets, delivering a greater value every step of the way.

Having attacked the mid-range and upper-end markets, Nvidia has its sights set on the sub-$200 range, unleashing its GTX 650 Ti. At $150, the new arrival is roughly 34% cheaper than last month's GTX 660 and about 7% pricier than the Radeon HD 7770, which fetches around $140 depending on features and rebates. Here comes our full review.

Recently there has been a surging demand for solid state drives that sacrifice space for speed and more affordable price tags, and manufacturers have been racing to...