The Eee Box Gets Reviewed

When I first laid eyes upon the Eee Box at Computex, I couldn’t help but have an intense desire to pick it up and run off, but I figured swimming across an ocean to get back home wouldn’t be much fun. Luckily though, our friends at HotHardware have been able to give the new PC from ASUS a thorough testing.

Given the price point ($349) and overall size (8.5″ x 7″ x 1″), this is one PC that many people would crave to have beside their display. It’s roughly the same size as a Nintendo Wii, yet offers a fully-functional Windows XP rig, and as Dave found out, it plays 720p content just fine. It also includes an 80GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM along with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270.

What also impresses me is that during the video review, a Dell 24″ display is used at its full 1920×1200 resolution. This is contrary to what ASUS has told me in the past, that the Eee Box tops out at 1600×1200. I’m glad they were incorrect, because it certainly adds a lot to the rigs capabilities. Seems like one heck of an impressive rig for $349, to say the least.

Credit: HotHardware

In terms of its general performance profile, the Asus Eee Box delivered more than we expected for its size, power consumption and price tag. The machine provided a fluid experience in all but our full 1080p digital video playback test but held up to 720p playback with good quality. System boot time was easily as fast as a standard entry-level desktop or notebook system, with application load times that felt snappy and responsive throughout testing.