TAG | ASUS Eee Box gets unboxed in Australia at last! |
|
| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Wednesday, 13 August 2008 | |
|
Page 1 of 3   
Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
Looking a bit like a Nintendo Wii from an alternate universe, and initially only coming in “black” in Australia (despite other colours being available overseas), the Eee Box effectively has similar specs to the Asus Eee PC 904 and 1000H series notebook computers. This will cause people to wonder which Eee PC is best for their needs, depending on the intended usage scenarios, however the Eee Box can be connected to the “VESA” mounts on the back of LCD screens, giving you a “zero footprint” option, “hiding” the Eee Box from view entirely if desired. The usage scenarios are something that Asus wants to emphasise: given the Atom 1.6Ghz processor, these are “nettop” PCs, meant for everyday surfing, wordprocessing, blogging, email and also things like IPTV, whether through Internet TV programs like Joost or others. In addition, the Eee Box can display up to 720P HD video, and given that it has 802.11n wireless, can work as a wireless extender to play videos stored elsewhere on your home network. The Asus “Express Gate” technology is also included, letting you boot into a special pre-Windows environment in only 5 seconds, where you can access Firefox to surf the web, Skype for Internet phone calls and IM chat, and a photo manager, although all of these capabilities and plenty more can easily be added when you’re in Windows XP and performed there as well – Express Gate simply gives you choice. As a desktop PC, there is no LCD screen included: you’ll have to supply your own, just as with devices like the Mac Mini. In addition, the initial shipment from the factory has been so popular worldwide that only limited numbers are initially available for each country, and these don’t come with a USB keyboard or mouse. However, as the factory cranks into action to create millions of Eee PCs, shipments in the next 3-4 weeks will all come with an Asus branded full USB keyboard and USB optical mouse, at the same price, although as keyboards and mice aren’t expensive, it’s quite unlikely this would be any kind of deal-breaker for initial adopters. Given the Eee Box is powered with the Intel Atom chip, the Box won’t be winning any benchmark tests against fully fledged Core 2 Duo or Core i7 equipped machines. Clearly, however, the Box isn’t meant to be a performance demon, but simply to give more than enough performance for “everyday” computing tasks, just as the Asus Eee PC notebooks do today. So, what are the specs, the price, the operating system choices and what is the other info Asus has provided? Please read on to page 2. |
| < Next story in category | Previous story in the category > |
|---|
