NOTHING COSTS MORE THAN IT USED TO:

The $50 Roku LT hits the perfect sweet spot of low cost and abundant content, which is why it is CNNMoney's Best In Tech for the set-top-box category.

Using the Roku LT, you'll find the obligatory Netflix (NFLX) and Hulu apps, along with HBO Go. But in addition to those staples, there's also the likes of Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) Instant Video, Crackle, Epix, PBS, Fox (FOX), Blockbuster, Time Warner Cable (TWC, Fortune 500), Syfy, and the music video app Vevo. There's access to streaming music services like Rdio, Spotify and Pandora (P), and live pro baseball, hockey, basketball and soccer games.

And that just cracks the surface. There's a lot of content you won't currently find on an Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) TV or Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) Chromecast.

The Roku box itself is small, quiet and more than up to the task of handling HD video. The top resolution of streaming content is only 720p, but the vast majority of people will be hard pressed to notice the difference in quality from the top-of-the-line (and twice-as-expensive) Roku 3.

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