Roundup: Three Mini PCs : Asus Eee Box
4. Asus Eee Box
Accessories
With the aid of a special attachment, you can attach the EeeBox to the back of your screen to make a PC with a small footprint. You'll need a VESA compatible screen for it to work, and the fixings need to be on the main part of the screen, not its stand.
And if you'd rather use the EeeBOX as a multimedia center, Asus also have a dedicated remote, the Eee Stick.
The Eee Stick only ships with some EeeBox units and isn't available separately. For the time being, stocks are limited. They're not unlike Nintendo's Wiimotes and have a few directional controls as well as buttons to skip between tracks.
Alongside its EeePC range, Asus also has a range of mini PCs based largely on the same components as its incredibly popular netbooks.
These EeeBoxs are marketed as 'extra' computers to go in a kid's bedroom, say, or hide behind your TV to turn it into a multimedia center.
Handling & Connectivity
The EeeBox is very compact and light, and if you're used to having a large tower on (on even under) your desk, it's hard to imagine how a regular desktop computer manages to fit inside.
Asus has managed it by using the same components that it uses for netbooks inside a different form factor.
To keep things simple, the EeeBox that we tested is more else exactly the same as the Eee PC 1000H netbook.
What's missing, though, is a screen, a keyboard and a mouse--you're expected to provide all those--and a battery, as the EeeBox is designed to stay in one place.
Instead, you get more connectivity options: on the front there are now four USB ports, one Ethernet port, a memory card reader and a DVI output instead of VGA.
The switch to DVI means that the EeeBox can function as a multimedia PC, by connecting to the HDMI port on your TV, and the maximum output resolution is a very high 1920 x 1200 pixels.
On the back, a clever mini-jack port can also provide an optical signal, although you'll either need a compatible cable or the special adaptor provided by Asus.
The version Asus sent us for testing had an 80 GB hard drive, but these are gradually being replaced by 160 GB models. (Both are still available online, so check twice before you buy).
We found our EeeBox to be incredibly quiet, producing next to no noise unless you press your ear up to it.
Consuming between 18 W and 24 W, it's energy efficient too--more so than most desktop PCs and a lot of notebooks, too.
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| DVI, power cable and WiFi antenna | Optical sound out |
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| Memory card reader | 2 USB and 2 Mini-jacks |
Processing Power
There aren't any surprises in store here: using netbook-quality components will get you netbook-like results. Turning the computer on is fast, requiring 55 seconds to launch Windows, or giving almost instantaneous access to the Express Gate interface (see below). Launching applications, playing video and other tasks are also executed rapidly. Getting stuck in to more challenging activities that make more intensive use of the CPU, like rendering video, still takes around three times longer than on a mid-range or high-end laptop.
As a media player, the Eee Box really hits the buffers when it has to deal with HD content as its processor just isn't powerful enough to decode things like Full HD Blu-ray content to watch on the DVI output. This drawback has cost the Eee Box a star in our rating system, and we very much hope that future versions rectify this problem.
Express Gate
As soon as you fire it up, the EeeBox gives you the choice between two operating systems: Windows XP, or Asus' proprietary ExpressGate based on a stripped-down Linux distribution.
It gives direct access to a handful of applications that you might want to use straight away: web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging and Skype.
It's very useful if you need to fire off an e-mail in a hurry without waiting for Windows to load and then the application you need.
To get the most out of it though, you'll need a little patience and extra configuration: ExpressGate doesn't have access to the data on your Windows partition, and if you're using wireless internet, that will need setting up again.
The Express Gate Launch Screen
| Asus Eee Box | |
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| Pros | Cons |
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At the end of the day, the EeeBox is nothing more than an EeePC 1000H in a different case with the battery, keyboard and case replaced by a few extra connectivity options. Put that way, it's only easy to justify if the price discrepancy between the two models isn't significant.
- Eee Box Nettop PC 1.6...
It might have been worth mentioning the current limitations playing flash video (Hulu) on the atom system, even the ion. Flash is currently rendered by the CPU and does not play smoothly in full screen at HD resolutions on atom systems. This may not matter to some people, but it's one of the only things keeping me from using an ion system as a HTPC.
Adobe is supposedly working on offloading some flash processing to the GPU, but it is not clear when (or if) that will happen.
I think it's best if these mini's are used on the most basic usage. No games, no hi-resolution videos, no heavy processing.
Digital Versus seems to think anything MAC is the best thing since sliced bread. It seems to me that if you are comparing a MAC with its non-Atom processor (they don't happen to mention what it has, but at 2GHz, we know it's not an Atom), then why don't they compare it to the mini I helped a friend buy. She does email and word processing, and little more. But this little Dell machine from Best Buy had a Core 2 processor, and would run circles around either of these Atom machines. Also, it came with a wireless keyboard / mouse, and a 22" wide panel monitor.
I agree with "erichlund". Every Apple product seems to come out with a 5 star rating, yet the cons listed for the Apple product would seem to make it impossible to justify giving it a 5 star rating. At the very least the cons for the other products seem to be no worse than the cons for the Apple product. While I realize it is "chic" to lust after Apple products, part of the credibility of a review/comparison relies on objective ratings. Arbitrarily giving every Apple product a 5 star rating does nothing for the credibility of this article. When considering the price, lack of accessible ram upgrading, poor cpu performance, how is the Mac-Mini worthy of a 5 star rating?
Anyone know where you can find the Acer Aspire Revo from a reputable dealer? They were suppose to be out a while back.
It'll be good to have a few more Core 2 Duo machines added to the mix when the article gets updated. I'd also be interested in having a "value" section added. Such a section should consider what you get for your money and also the potential resale value.
P.S. CaptainRon, while I'm not saying a 5 star rating is right or not for the mini, the RAM, hard drive and optical drive are easily upgradable, the cpu performance is (at least in my opinion) fine for such a small form factor and the price isn't nearly as bad when you factor in the resale value. Since they update them so irregularly, their second hand prices stay a lot higher than other machines.
Well at 2x the price, that mac mini better be have a bit more.
Apple Mac mini, 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, SuperDrive NO KEYBOARD/MOUSE - $849.00
Acer Aspire Revo - $400
Acer EEEEEEE - $380
All prices in Canadian dollars.
At least get systems in the same price
hell even a Acer Veriton(business machine) is not too big for most users while packing more power then those Atom systems(core2 or a64 X2)
You could buy a decent laptop for the price of the apple machine, and get better performance. But i guess some are willing to pay more for looks than anything else.
I would very much like to see the AOpen MP-45 mini-PC family added to this review: http://usa.aopen.com/Products.aspx?id=74
Granted AOpen sells it as DIY mini-PC, though you can get a preconfigured system from http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/myaopen/MP45.html
Seems to me the Dell Studio Hybrid should have been covered. It's closest thing to a Mac Mini out there. Oh yea and it's at least avaliable to buy in the US.
Does anyone know where to buy that Acer Aspire Revo in the US?
For the EeeBOX the lack of "keyboard mouse screen" is a very stupid thing to B!@%& about since this is standard throughout all products
Spanky Deluxe, while you can upgrade the Mac Mini, my point was simply that for a 5 star product the ACCESSIBILITY to perform a simple ram upgrade was poor. While resale value is higher on any Apple product due to the "brand tax" associated with Apple products, the high price should invalidate the Mac Mini from a 5 star rating if one is using resale value as a factor. Simply put, you can almost buy two non-Apple mini's for the price of a single Apple mini, that really has nothing more going for it than appearance and size. Again if one is talking value, ie: bang for your buck, the Mac Mini isn't a 5 star product.
Also, I have no problem with the CPU performance of the product, my problem is with the rating it was given. It's touted as an a decent office computer and I'm sure it handles these functions fine, but the vast majority of office workstations are Windows based (for better or worse), which you can get for CHEAPER.
My argument is not with Apple, it's with the review. Apple products are generally above average quality items, but in this case the Mac Mini isn't discernibly better than the other minis which were rated at less than 5 stars. Again, no problem with Apple, but the objectivity of the ratings of this article should be brought in to question.
Rock and roll.