ASUS Eee Box B202 reviewed, smiled upon

So, can a $299 mini desktop really find a place in your jaded heart? Based on a recent review by HotHardware, the answer is a resounding "yes." In terms of general performance, the box delivered more potency than critics expected, and the hardware within was able to provide a "a fluid experience in all but the full 1080p digital video playback test." Of note, it didn't have any trouble churning through a 720p clip, so there's still hope for folks obsessed with flipping through HD trailers for hours on end. Furthermore, the unit was found to be remarkably energy efficient, with only "a slightly heavier draw than an Eee PC 900." Of course, we wouldn't expect this to replace your Alienware or anything, but for the most average of tasks, the B202 should be adequate enough. Hit the read link for the full rundown.

[DS @ Aug 4th 2008 8:54AM]

Out of the thousands of computer models they reveal every few days, this is the only one I'm interested in. They should release this, not another netbook!

[Steffen Jobbs @ Aug 4th 2008 9:18AM]

This is great. I hope they have a new model Asus Box every week, too. Within a month that should have that 1080p playback problem licked by model 204B. Should take only two or three in-between models to reach that goal.

[kccboy2004 @ Aug 4th 2008 9:29AM]

anybody know if and where you can buy these in North America ?

[OneLove @ Aug 4th 2008 11:18AM]

So it is in the $299 range? last week the article said $429?

[Abbey @ Aug 7th 2008 11:11AM]

Agreed, less notebooks, more mini pc's Asus. You guys heard of J&R's promo?

http://www.jr.com/promotion/listContent.jsp?promoName=EeeBoxDemo

[matt @ Aug 4th 2008 9:00AM]

Engadget in praise of EEE shocker!

I thought it was company policy for bashing a company giving its customers choice...

[Pochi @ Aug 4th 2008 9:12AM]

A choice?!

I swear to God if I wanted to buy an Eee laptop right now I would need to use Wikipedia to figure out what in God's name would be the best model.

That's not good marketing.

[John @ Aug 4th 2008 9:18AM]

Hahaha I've actually had to do that.

[sinjinn @ Aug 4th 2008 9:25AM]

if you just want an eee you can just go buy an eee , but if you want an eee with an atom processor and a particular keyboard because it revidwed better and maybe you want ssd instead of hdd , and ..etc etc .. you can see which one you want and buy it.
dont knock em for giving you a choice and not sacrificing your choices just to market it better.

[Pochi @ Aug 4th 2008 10:31AM]

@sinjinn

'if you just want an eee you can just go buy an eee"

No, you can't. That's the point. If you do, you're likely to forego a model better suited to your needs because you didn't do your research.

[sinjinn @ Aug 8th 2008 8:28AM]

@pochi

thats doesnt make sense. you are saying they should only make one model just incase you miss out on something better.

so basically you want NO choice to prevent them making something after you bought your eee.

[dcny @ Aug 4th 2008 9:04AM]

Just curious how do you do a recovery when windows gets slow and needs a fresh install with no optical drive.

[Neeko @ Aug 4th 2008 9:22AM]

Im pretty sure aslong as the hard drive doesnt crash u can simply just reinstall from a separte partition of XP already there.

[drzeller @ Aug 4th 2008 9:25AM]

re: No optical drive - use a USB one or copy the install from over the network to the HD? People with laptops/tablets without optical drives have been doing this for years.

D.

[Steffen Jobbs @ Aug 4th 2008 9:26AM]

I always kept a freshly cloned install on a hard drive partition to re-create a replacement. Hooking up a drive to a USB port and installing a clone is much faster than a fresh optical drive install.
Norton Ghost works fine:
http://www.oakdome.com/lab/?page_id=33

[mark @ Aug 4th 2008 11:01AM]

bootable jump drive....

The Eee Box kit comes with a detailed User's Manual, a Quick Start Guide, a warranty card, and a couple of DVDs - one with the System Recovery image and the other a Support CD that contains a number of useful tools for reconfiguring or restoring the Eee Box, including a utility to create a bootable thumb drive with the factory OS image.

[R @ Aug 4th 2008 10:45AM]

From the review..

"The Eee Box kit comes with a detailed User's Manual, a Quick Start Guide, a warranty card, and a couple of DVDs - one with the System Recovery image and the other a Support CD that contains a number of useful tools for reconfiguring or restoring the Eee Box, including a utility to create a bootable thumb drive with the factory OS image."

So if you have a spare computer with a DVD drive, you're all set.

Anyways, I want one or maybe two of these. I wish Asus would announce the official launch date.

[Neeko @ Aug 4th 2008 9:04AM]

Hmm i was considering getting a Mac mini for my new HTPC but if this can play my 720p rips without a problem i may reconsider. Ok Asus you have 2 weeks to convince me.

[From My Cube @ Aug 4th 2008 9:23AM]

step 1...remove stickers

[Steffen Jobbs @ Aug 4th 2008 9:28AM]

If you remove the stickers the Box would look like crap. They provide the only bit of color on that plain, ugly exterior.

[Chris Macdonald @ Aug 4th 2008 10:37AM]

i actually agree with steffen, it looks like a toy..

[Pochi @ Aug 4th 2008 10:57AM]

@Steffen Jobbs

You're a huge Apple fan. I thought you liked plain and ugly.

[MojoKid @ Aug 4th 2008 3:45PM]

A video review is here as well:
http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/Asus_Eee_Box_B202_Desktop_System__Video_Spotlight/

[Eric @ Aug 4th 2008 9:32AM]

Those are some seriously huge ass stickers, especially the XP one.

[ilh @ Aug 4th 2008 9:54AM]

The stickers are standard size, it's the box that's really small.

[Neeko @ Aug 4th 2008 9:35AM]

So many choices now. For $299 this is a steal. $560 for mac mini sounds expensive now. But the size of the mini is what i like.

[kccboy2004 @ Aug 4th 2008 5:57PM]

please don't bother with the mac mini, unless you plan to uninstall OSX and put in Linux.

OSX hogs too many resources to run on the Mac Mini.

I know... I have one.

[kinglouie @ Aug 4th 2008 9:46AM]

So when does this thing actually go on sale? I want to buy one for my domicile in my castle in the nether regions of England.

[DssTrainer @ Aug 4th 2008 10:20AM]

now we just need them to add a slot load dvdrw and we are teh win!

[Joshua Ochs @ Aug 4th 2008 10:33AM]

I could understand leaving the optical drive out of the netbooks, but on a desktop?

[Macdelaney @ Aug 4th 2008 12:15PM]

damn, I need somthing to playback those 1080p, if not, whats the point?

[Dan @ Aug 4th 2008 10:42AM]

I just wish it had a decent graphics chip. If so, it would be a must buy for me. Oh well.

[Iridium @ Aug 4th 2008 1:03PM]

Sorry, needs an internal optical drive.

Still it has plenty of power. Probably as much as my 4 year old work computer with a single core Athlon 64 and 2gb of ram.

[JustFrozen @ Aug 4th 2008 2:52PM]

I've done the research, it's basically impossible to build anything as powerful and small as this. Plus it has SplashTop. I'm sold

[kL @ Aug 4th 2008 4:48PM]

And even that gets ugly sticker on the front :/

[Caullen @ Jan 24th 2009 5:27PM]

They should call it the ASUS Wii Box

[James G. @ Aug 4th 2008 6:43PM]

Perfect in almost every way I see it, but if it had a damn dvd drive, it would have been great. I mean they could've at least sacrifice a bit of the slimness and put a fuckin dvd drive in there

[Dustin @ Aug 5th 2008 2:29AM]

I wonder how this would fare as a carputer?? The mac mini has been a popular choice up through now. I was thinking of something like a cherry pc, but it's ARM architecture rather than x86, so Windows XP would be out of the question. at only $100 more, this might make a smart move.

The lack of an optical drive wouldn't matter a lot, most head units have a disc input. The only thing that would suffer is the lack of DVD playback, and you wouldn't be able to rip CDs on the fly. hmm...

[Rich @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:25PM]

Combine this with a pico projector,
It is a winner!

[Tipit @ Aug 9th 2008 2:22AM]

Ok just order this baby at zipzoomfly.com, I am giving Asus another try after buying the Eee 900 which fails to impress me and sold it after 2 weeks, and even if they say it is for checking emails and doing some light work the 900 still is very slow. So if this thing really can do a decent play especially checking emails and watching movies online (wink) then this is set for me rather than mac mini, which i still think is a better buy.

[loleeofa @ Sep 30th 2008 4:02PM]

can l instal windows media centre(not the player) the one found on vista machines on this pc. I need to use it as my home entertainment Pc hooked to the 42cm plasma TV..Pls help