The most noticeable feature of the Ambros Shuttle is its size. The neat little matte-black box is smaller than all the other PCs in this group, measuring just one foot tall and deep, and seven inches wide. It’s a good choice if you’re a bit tight on space and need a machine that isn’t going to take over your entire office or back bedroom.

Unfortunately, that initial good impression was marred by the poor documentation supplied with the unit. All you get is a Quick Guide poster that mostly focuses on the technical details of what’s going on inside the machine, rather than simply telling you how to set up the PC and get it working for the first time. A basic manual is provided for the monitor, but this still glosses over details such as connecting the PC’s audio connector to the speakers that are built into the monitor.

While the compact design will certainly appeal to many people, the smaller case is a little more expensive than others on test. That means there’s less money to spend on other parts of the PC. At first glance, the 3.0GHz Celeron processor used in the Shuttle might appear to be faster than the 2.2GHz and 2.8GHz processors used by the other PCs in this test.

However, the Celeron is actually a fairly old processor design and is outperformed by its more modern rivals. The 3D graphics performance is a definite area of weakness – so don’t even think about playing 3D games on this.

Even so, the Shuttle will still be fast enough to cope with most other tasks, such as running wordprocessing or spreadsheet programs. Browsing the web and sending emails will be no problem, and it will also be able to handle more demanding tasks such as video editing. It’s really just games that are likely to give the Shuttle serious problems.

No Firewire connector is provided, so home video buffs will need to budget for an add-on card to connect their camcorder.

The Shuttle is not going to win any awards for performance or multimedia features, but it is still a good option for anyone that needs a compact PC at a keen price.

This article is part of a group test of budget desktop PCs.
Others are:
Watford Performa 3500+RV
PC Specialist Trident s500
PC Nextday Zoostorm 1-3301 Versatile PC
Mesh D820 Value+
Evesham Axis STR Plus
The table can be read via our pdf download