Over a year has passed since ASUS first introduced its Intel Atom-powered Eee Box PC, but the system has yet to capture our imagination due to the limitations imposed by its internal hardware.
What we really need is an Eee Box that's small, low-power and equipped with components able to deliver a full-HD 1080p media experience. Fortunately, the folks at ASUS agree as they've come up with this:
It's dubbed the EeeBox PC EB1012, and it makes what was once little more than a cute shell into a full-on high-def HTPC. Inside the EeeBox EB1012 resides Intel's 1.6GHz dual-core Atom 330 processor, and that sits atop of NVIDIA's ION chipset - complete with a GeForce 9400M GPU. The latter will provide hardware-accelerated playback of most media formats, resulting in the ability to output full-HD 1080p video - a feat unachievable by EeeBox's of old.
Elsewhere, users will find 2GB of DDR2 memory, a 250GB hard drive, Wireless N and Ethernet connectivity, a multi-card reader, numerous USB ports, eSATA and HDMI out. Not bad for a system measuring 222mm x 178mm x 26.9mm and weighing only 1.1kg.
Attach a USB TV tuner, and perhaps additional external storage, and we reckon you've got a fairly potent HTPC solution. There's no word on pricing or availability yet, but seeing as ASUS already has an official product page, we'd expect to see the system sooner rather than later.
