ASUS EeeBox PC B208 with discrete graphics, HDMI-out in June?

If we're to believe a pre-sales agent's response to a query about the availability of the EeeBox PC B208, then ASUS' little HD nettop with dual-core Atom 330 processor, ATI Radeon HD 4530 graphics, and HDMI-out should pop for retail in June -- for the UK anyway. A box that looks to be the ideal low-cost ($500ish), quiet (26dB), home theater PC riding your in-house 802.11n WiFi or gigabit Ethernet network. With Acer's Ion-powered AspireRevo hitting the UK in May, ASUS had better hope for a June launch at the latest.

[Thanks, Thomas C.]

[BubbRubb @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:11AM]

So, does it do 1080?
I've got the TV, the N wireless, the NAS and the content. All I need/want now is the Atom HTPC

[giyad @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:59AM]

I just want to know what happened to the 204 and 206??? I've been hearing about those forever and I can't wait to get one of them (they play 1080p), but they're no where to be found.. and already there is talk of a 208??!!!

[David S @ Apr 23rd 2009 10:46AM]

If it's a Radeon 4530... it should.

[superhobo @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:12AM]

Revo is better, because it doesn't have a crappy logo.

[Shinigami @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:51AM]

Wasn't Revo like $300-ish? Not $500-ish?
Or was it 300 euro-ish?

[Ma2T @ Apr 23rd 2009 11:41AM]

The Aspire Revo starts at £179.99 (US $267) for Linux / 1GB Ram, the next model up is £249 for Vista Home Premium / 2GB RAM.

http://www.netbooknow.net/acer/aspire-revo-release/

[Jimmy Jones @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:12AM]

What exactly is stopping me from building my own PC around same price with HDMI-out and e-SATA? with better and powerful graphics combo?

[Nick @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:14AM]

nothing. nothing at all.

[ChrisH @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:18AM]

Nothing is stopping you, but it would be hard to get something as compact as this would be. eSATA is really needed on this, and is what would make me choose the Revo over it.

[r3loaded @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:39AM]

Finding an attractive mini-ITX case to stick it.

[Jimmy Jones @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:48AM]

Pretty won't do me the justice of getting the most performance out of my slip, sleek, and pretty case. What does is the performance and getting the most out of it.

[iofthestorm @ Apr 23rd 2009 1:46PM]

Yeah, for about $500 you could easily build something with a much better CPU. I actually built a computer a few weeks ago for $400 including shipping and taxes that is faster than this. But this would still be interesting to me because of the form factor, just not $500 worth interesting. I think I could build an HTPC in an SFF case for about $500 that would blow this away.

[Shinigami @ Apr 24th 2009 1:19AM]

Understanding how hard it is to buy Atom CPU and Nvidia Ion platform and a proper PSU and a cooling solution for Atom and Ion parts.
I guess.

[JayC @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:16AM]

I thought they would come in much cheaper, around $329 or so. At $500 you can get a small enough PC to use as an HTPC.

Not a single company has figured out how to make a "nettop" that will actually sell, very pathetic.

[Jamus @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:23AM]

I agree about the price. From the early info, it seemed they would be aiming for a

[Brian @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:20AM]

I wish Asus could have thought of something better than 'Eee', and what the hell were they thinking when they branded it with that god-awful logo?! And BUBBLES?! Are you freaking kidding me? I think I'd rather go Acer.

[Precurse @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:35AM]

Isn't Vista's default screen saver 'bubbles' ?

[giyad @ Apr 23rd 2009 10:01AM]

whats wrong with you!!! everybody loves bubbles!

bubbles make me the world a better place :D

[Nick @ Apr 23rd 2009 11:01AM]

ya man, bubbles. reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dasab33h1nQ#t=1m37s

[Nick @ Apr 23rd 2009 11:04AM]

sorry,
working link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0AeSzvVT3c

[AVG @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:20AM]

If the Revo offers the Atom 330 as an option before this launches, Asus is in trouble.

[Steve @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:20AM]

what this do have which u will strungle with building ur own itx computer is how small and brilliently backed in these are. most itx cases will have twice the height(or depth seeing as this thing is on its side) Also mini-itx boards arent that common with wifi. (yes there are some out there. but its just another thing u need to fit into the case)

[max @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:27AM]

The eeexbox B208 is already available in sweden, im writing this on one atm, for $500 your actually getting quite alot. a IR remote, a small bluetooth keyboard and a evenly small bluetooth mouse, and a shitload of cables, like HDMI-HDMI, HDMI-DVI etc. its quite a complete package. However for those looking to run XBMC on it look away, the crappy radeon drivers will never be implemented, im waiting for the ION based Acer to hit shelfs for that.

[Dubb @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:58AM]

You're running XBMC in Linux I'm assuming? You can use XBMC in Windows with ATI's Radeon drivers and I'm sure it would work great.

[TREX6662k5 @ Apr 23rd 2009 11:03AM]

There isn't hardware acceleration on windows XBMC, so it will still be bad. ATI is lagging behind acceleration on the Linux OS so Nvidia is the choice at the moment with beta releases every other week.

[chefgon_ign @ Apr 23rd 2009 11:05AM]

I kind of want one to throw in my bedroom and hook up to my HDTV for some media streaming and casual web surfing. Maybe I'll rig up a Wii Remote to it for easy cursor control from the bed.

[Rick White @ Apr 23rd 2009 12:45PM]

I wanted this for the same reason, but unfortunately XBMC only does GPU acceleration of video with nVidia GPUs (and that's not even out yet.) Too bad.

[christoffer.arstrand @ Apr 23rd 2009 12:56PM]

I think you are confusing the B206 with the B208. The B206 has been available in Sweden for some time now, yes. The B206 only has a single core Atom CPU, but with HT so it shows up as two logical cores in Windows taskmanager etc. I have had one at home mounted behind the TV for quite some time now. I don't think the keyboard and mice is Bluetooth either, but they do have good range.

[Maddy @ Apr 23rd 2009 1:18PM]

Agreed. ATI in this thing is a deal breaker, just because of the damned linux joke-of-drivers that ATI provides. Nvidia is much better in that regard. I'd wait for the ION platform with dual core ATOM and with Asus. I have had a soft spot for asus because they're the ones who actually pioneered the netbook/nettop segment. Common ASUS, ION with Atom 330 isn't too much to ask for. Please make it quick.

[Dubb @ Apr 24th 2009 12:39PM]

Oh I see now, you mean XBMC's internal player. I use ZoomPlayer Pro which supports both nVidia and ATI's GPU drivers for video decoding. And it's easy to setup XBMC to launch your vids fullscreen/etc. in ZoomPlayer.

I didn't like how the internal player would continue to play the movie in the background anyways when you went to the main menu. I thought it was annoying.

[darkpros @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:27AM]

The acer revo is already out in the german t-online shop but only with the 230 and 2gb ram option...

it costs only 300 euros (400$).

http://ndevil.com/de/231041/acer-aspire-revo-3600-fur-299-euro-kaufen/

[iamnotafish @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:31AM]

How is this better than the Western Digital box that sells for ~ $100ish that has HDMI etc? Sure, it might not be a fully fledged computer, but if all you want is an easy way to watch movies on your TV, that makes more sense - plus you have leftover cash!

[jpw21683 @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:38AM]

I'd want to use it as a HTPC, adding a TV tuner, to watch/record live TV.

The WD box is only for watching video...no TV functionality.

[sean @ Apr 23rd 2009 10:01AM]

Also, no internet connection with the WD box, unless you hack it up. With this, you'd be able to run any windows program you want:

-XBMC
-Boxee
-SabNZBD for newsgroups
-uTorrent
-etc

[sean @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:32AM]

I was dying to get one of the new ion nettops or nettops with a gfx card that can do HD decoding so i can do 1080p video, until I saw that that the processor is too weak for XMBC and Boxee. A single core atom is not powerful enough for flash, so count Hulu out of the question. I was stoked for a new htpc to replace my popcorn hour, but looks like i'll be waiting for a dual core nettop. I just don't feel like building my own HTPC, and a quiet small form factor atom HTPC would be ideal, with its lower power consumption and warranty.

Just give us the damn dual core atom!!!

[ilh @ Apr 23rd 2009 11:11AM]

Um..."ASUS' little HD nettop with DUAL-CORE Atom 330 processor"

[digitallysick @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:31AM]

So dual core atom vs the Ion platform, humm tough decisions. The Acer Net top is on my want list, so i can connect it to my tv . I cant wait

[Dubb @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:59AM]

Really more like Radeon HD 4530 vs GeForce 9500M.

ATI has a better HDMI w/ Audio Out track record than nVidia so it looks promising. I'd still build my own though.

[Dubb @ Apr 23rd 2009 10:00AM]

edit: 9400M, somehow I put 9500 sorry.

[AVG @ Apr 23rd 2009 10:46AM]

Wait long enough (probably not long at all) and the 330 will couple itself with Ion. Patience.

[Myk3 @ Apr 23rd 2009 9:52AM]

I rather have this over the Revo.. This has the dual core which might help with the HULU flash problem that the test Revo is having.. The Revo can't do HD flash, since Flash cant offload the flash to the video card.. So I would rather have the slightly beefier CPU.

[Liam @ Apr 23rd 2009 10:01AM]

Asus and Acer are taking a step in the right direction here, but these net-tops make perfect HTPCs if they have an internal:

Slim DVD-RW
DVB-T Tuner

Do it in black and you have youself a customer.

I wouldn't mind a tradeoff on a slightly thicker case to accomodate these specs.

Also a ATI 4530 will easily beat a NV 9400.

[giyad @ Apr 23rd 2009 10:02AM]

I've seen it in black http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/03/02/asus_eee_box_206/

[TREX6662k5 @ Apr 23rd 2009 11:07AM]

"Also a ATI 4530 will easily beat a NV 9400."

Not when you consider ATI's abysmal driver support on Linux. Nvidia users enjoy hardware acceleration in xbmc while ATI is still playing with its self.

[James Young @ Apr 23rd 2009 10:05AM]

I hope this sells for less than MSRP.. because $500 is way too close to mac mini territory

[Jaroslav @ Apr 23rd 2009 10:29AM]

And, unlike the Mac Mini, if I'm reading correctly, this has no optical drive, so you'd probably still want to have another piece of hardware for playing DVDs or Blu-Ray discs, no?

[danizel1 @ Apr 23rd 2009 10:35AM]

my thoughts exactly

[chefgon_ign @ Apr 23rd 2009 11:07AM]

Random question, you can put Windows and Linux onto a Mac Mini, right?

[Rob Bourne @ Apr 24th 2009 4:11PM]

@Jaroslav:

It does have an optical drive.

[darkpros @ Apr 23rd 2009 10:35AM]

@Liam if you look at the Picture on the back of the B208, it has a tv.tuner built in!
http://ndevil.com/de/231048/asus-eeebox-b208-der-revo-konkurrent-ab-juni/

Who needs a dvdplayer nowaday, it just breaks after about 2 years. usbsticks and streaming is the way to go!