Published: Tuesday 1st September, 2009 | Author: Parm Mann
Products: Eee Box EB1012
Companies: ASUSTeK (All ASUSTeK content)
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email to a friendOver 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.
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http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asrock-NetTop-ION-330-System-Black-Intel-Atom-330-2GB-DDR2-320GB-HDD-HDMI
This system is a little larger, but does have a built in optical drive. Only problem I see is no front usb portsQuote
The big BUT is though that for similar money it is possible to put together a full PC... mine can be replicated for <£350 (even less if you got cheaper case) including Blu-Ray drive... yes it's big (Antec Fusion) but a proper dual core desktop CPU is much faster, and at 65W idle for the whole machine it's not that expensive to run... and you get 500GB storage, very similar NVidia chipset, room inside for a TV tuner etc...Quote
1. Must have blue ray player built in
2. Noise - must be effectively silent from 3ft (1 metre) away)
3. 8 channel LPCM so it can plug into my AV receiver.
Current models tend to fail 2 and 3 (3 is apparantly very flaky) and Eee box fails no 1 as well.
So I need a lot of convincing - I could be build a better version myself (no 3 is a motherboard issue) that could pass no 1 and 2 but I could not make it as pretty as the Eee boxQuote
The Asrock NetTop ION 330 can be had for around £225 if you wait for scan todayonly deals. Also, the BlueRay version can be had for around £290 if you shop around.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asrock-NetTop-ION-330-System-Black-Intel-Atom-330-2GB-DDR2-320GB-HDD-HDMI
This system is a little larger, but does have a built in optical drive. Only problem I see is no front usb ports
Asrock FTW... miles better IMHo. Happy with mine!Quote
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