ASUS' EeeBox EB1501U packs ION and USB 3.0, need we say more?
Sure NVIDIA's Ion 2 is all the rage right now, but ASUS still has a few tricks left in store for the progenitor nettop GPU. The EeeBox EB1501U sports a typical nettop processor -- in this case, the older Diamondville Intel Atom 330 dual core -- with Ion One, and as an added bonus, there's USB 3.0 support. Also under the hood? A 2.5-inch, 320GB HDD, DVD drive, and 802.11b/g/n WiFi. As for the other home theater PC box, the EeeMedia EM0501 isn't quite as exciting -- just a 800MHz Samsung ARM processor, a variety of codec supports, and HDMI out. Still, given history, it's a pretty solid addition. Pricing and availability? Your guess is as good as ours for now. Enjoy the pictures for the time being.
































SWEET :)
I just want some reasonably priced USB 3.0 peripherals such as external hard drives. Without them this is useless.
Decent.
I'm all for USB 3.0. but showing that it saves you 30 seconds here and there isnt exactly much of a selling point. why dont they just say its twice as fast!
not bad, hopefully others will follow
@bolezhinkov If you read carefully, I think it's transferring a 2.1GB file. So it'll add up if there're lot of files to deal with at a time.
WHere is the UL30jt hands-on at?
How useful is USB 3 on an Atom platform? can the machine even use the bandwidth? While eventually all USB ports on machines will be 3.0, I'm not seeing the benefit right now. Specially since new tech tends to be more expensive at launch.
@xtasi
I'll take a stab at this. Since this will likely be used for media consumption, it's got a processor that is just powerful enough to push out the content while still being energy efficient and cool. But, it's going to have to have a large hard drive with large (movie) files to transfer around, and that's where you'll want the speed. It's trivial to sit and wait for a 10MB music file, but the transfer times can make a big difference with a 600MB to 4.5GB movie file.
That's my take on it.
All the need to do now is bundle this bad boy with a thumb qwerty keyboard with a built in pointing device and I'm sold!
Lol, I just bought an Asus 1201N that has practically the exact same specs- except it's a netbook.
Like this idea; desktop that's uber light and portable, yet has some nice multimedia abilities=great setup.
How pathetic is it that a nettop beat out the "premium laptops" and "premium desktops" in the USB 3.0 race? We are still stuck with adapters and pci cards.
Not bad, it's gonna replace my old POS P4 computer that's holding my small DVD collection, stream my hulu channels and YouTube.
Any word on the pricing?
I know that Windows Media Center won't let you record DVR-style to an ext USB drive, but does anyone know if you can record to an eSATA drive?
Thanks for the close up of the windows 7 product key! Win for me!
@moldymac
what do you plan to do with that used product key?
@BubblegumBalloon
Win7 consumer level product keys have 7 activation usages. Atleast that's how it use to be with the previous OSs. I've used corporate codes since Win XP SP3
@BubblegumBalloon
You can activate any copy of w7 home premium x86/x64 over phone using this key.
Its valid ofc
Output
Product Key : GMX3D-3GJWT-CVTM7-6FK8G-VYVVV
Validity : Valid
Product ID : XXXXX-OEM-9802977-83379
Activation ID : 5e017a8a-f3f9-4167-b1bd-ba3e236a4d8f
Edition Type : HomePremium
Edition ID : X15-37340
Key Type : OEM:COA
Crypto ID : 196
Need you say more?
Yes, Ion 2 and Blu-Ray.
@reallynotnick
Ion 2 is weaker than Ion 1 good sir, it is more energy efficient however. But what does that matter when it is hooked up to an outlet 24/7? Bluray however is a logical upgrade I suppose but what do you need bluray for when you have the internet and harddrives.
@reallynotnick - couldn't care less about Ion2, but Blu-Ray would indeed be nice.
seems good, but you don't need usb 3.0 for a htpc or nettop, 1080p can be played very good from usb 2.0, and with a atom processor you wont use heavy files
ASUS...I love you guys...a lot...but srsly...this whole "no release date" thing you guys do...its killin me. I need a netbook and a nettop stat, and not knowing when ur new schwag is droppin makes coming to a decision about who to give my money to REALLY difficult....
overpriced
underpowered
no thanks
@JakeInDC
LOLWUT? Did you even read the article?
@Anticrawl
Why are pc makers putting in cheaper slower parts??
The idea of a "nettop" is slick marketing to get you to pay high prices for cheap underpowered hardware.
@JakeInDC What does it cost? I thought the idea of a net top was to put low-price, energy-efficient parts in a low-cost computer.
yes!
Too bad there's no blu-ray.
The Samsung s5pv210 is based on Cortex-A8, no ancient ARM11, thank god.
I found my new HTPC
uhhhh yay!
So which one is more better?
Zotact Zbox HD-ID11 or this?
@makspain: the new Zbox is using ION2 (or Next Gen ION), so it'll probably be faster, but if you're using it as a media PC, the original ION handles HD just fine, so price differential is definitely a factor.
Personally, I've been using the ASRock ION 330 with Windows Media Center, and have had zero problems with HD playback.
It might have usb 3.0 but if there is slow hdd then that doesn't make any difference.
I wish Asus would remember that some people want this in their living room and design something that doesn't look like shit.
USB 3.0 ftw!