ASUS has been parading a variety of its Eee Top all-in-one PCs for as long as we can remember, but the launch of models equipped with higher-performance internal components has been slow to say the least. Why isn't the Taiwanese manufacturer rolling them out left, right and centre like it did with its Eee PC netbooks? One reason; it's waiting patiently for Windows 7.
Now that Microsoft's upcoming operating system is less than a month away, ASUS is ready to unveil a line of supporting systems - starting with the Eee Top ET2002 and Eee Top ET2203, a pair of beefed-up all-in-one solutions.
Available from October 22nd, the Eee Top ET2002 will offer a 20in display with a 1,600x900 resolution. Inside the system, computing power will be provided by an NVIDIA ION chipset - complete with GeForce 9400M graphics - and a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom 330 processor. That'll be joined by 2GB of DDR2 memory, a 250GB 5,400rpm hard drive and a tray-loading DVD drive.
Going up a notch, the Eee Top ET2203 will feature a larger 21.6in display with a full-HD 1,920x1,080 resolution. Providing the juice for this one will be a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 processor and discrete ATI Radeon HD 4570 graphics. Add in 4GB of DDR2 memory, 500GB of storage, and a Blu-ray optical drive, and you're looking at a well-equipped all-in-one solution.
Both systems offer touchscreen displays, a built-in webcam, stereo speakers, Gigabit Ethernet, Wireless N, multiple USB ports, a four-in-one card reader, a wireless keyboard and mouse, and Microsoft's Windows 7 Home Premium operating system. Pricing isn't bad either, at £559 for the Eee Top ET2002 and £819 for the Eee Top ET2203.
Despite the fact that Microsoft's Windows 7 is touch optimised, both new Eee Tops come pre-loaded with a bunch of additional finger-friendly software applications - including ASUS' Total Media Center, Eee Memo, Eee Cam and Eee Bar.
All sounds good so far, but there's one useful feature missing - support for multi-touch. ASUS has confirmed that both systems support single-touch functionality only, and though that might not be a huge miss for most users, we suspect multi-touch models will follow shortly after.
