Customer Reviews

Asus EeeBox EBXB202-WHT-X0081 Desktop PC (1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, XP Home) White

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Easy to hook up, tiny, and fast enough for the usual tasks - browsing, running Outlook Express, word processing and the like. I like the less-than-25W power consumption. It's very quiet, and did I mention how SMALL it is?

The much talked-about "Express Gate" boot up feature doesn't seem very worthwhile to me, but it might be to someone else. Booting into XP with this box is not much slower.

I don't think this machine will run demanding games, and with 1G of memory it won't do fifteen things at once. But if you need the basics, 160G of space, and don't want to weep over your electric bill if it gets left on overnight, then this is a great choice.

And it's not running Vista. That's a selling point.

Addendum: Now I have 2 - my wife continues to use the first one happily, and the second is my print, music, and home automation server. I rarely say this about Microsoft, and maybe Asus gets some of the credit, but this machine was a dream to set up. I plugged in all my USB devices (and these are many), the ethernet connector, the line out, and turned on the power. It came up, recognized everything, asked a few questions... and worked. No muss. No fuss. I don't think I've ever had this experience. And at <20W of power consumption (13W is typical in my use, which is less than my laptop uses), I can't recommend this little box highly enough.

Caveat! While I like the box, I had one fried in a lightning storm. Asus Service is a whole lot of No Fun to deal with. The repair process can be handled online, which is good because getting them on the phone appears to be impossible. They are unresponsive to emails and very, very slow about getting around to the actual repair work. The new motherboard, shipping and labor came to $155, though, which is cheaper than buying refurb or new. Since these may be out of production, or getting there, one viable approach is to find a dead one somewhere for very cheap and ship it in for repairs. Just don't be in a rush to get it back.

As much as I regret it, I have no choice but to return this machine because of its unacceptable online performance. But, let me first provide a brief account of my experience with the EeeBox... Desktop PC.

Setup:
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Very easy. The machine comes in a nice little box that hosts its body, the USB keyboard, USB mouse, desktop stand, mounting bracket if it is to be attached to a monitor, Wi-Fi antenna, DVI to VGA adapter, power adapter, manuals, disks, etc. Everything is very tightly and securely packed.

For the physical setup you may need a flat and a Phillips screwdriver if the PC is to be mounted on the back of a monitor. I didn't even notice until the Asus came that certain monitors allow for the installation of a mounting bracket on their back - apparently this is a standard - and the little Asus can be made to sit there - 4 screws to attach the bracket to the monitor and the bracket itself has ONE thumb screw that's sufficient to attach the PC's body to it.

There is only a DVI interface for the video but the supplied DVI-VGA adapter takes care of those monitors that do not support DVI.

The Wi-Fi antenna is easily attached (screwed in) to the body. To my surprise, my white box came with a black antenna but, since I decided to keep it hanging on the back of the monitor, the color mismatch did not bother me.

Once the keyboard and mouse are plugged in and the machine is powered up Windows XP installs itself. It's as easy as providing the user's name.

The manual explains exactly how to set up the Wi-Fi and/or the wired network connection.

The entire setup, physical and software can be completed in less than one hour and it presents no major challenges.

A BIG plus about the setup is that practically there is ZERO bloatware. No AOL, Norton Whatever or software that's set to expire in 30 days appears to be running. In fact, the only thing that you see on the desktop, once the XP installs is the Explorer icon, the trash can and, I believe, the Adobe reader.

Features and performance:
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On the PC's sides there are 4 USB ports of which 2 are taken by the keyboard and the mouse, an Ethernet port, DVI port and, I believe, a media card slot - didn't check exactly which standards are supported.

The optical mouse, while small, appears to be working well. The small keyboard is not 'typist quality' but it's usable. Of course, keyboards and mice are easy to replace.

The machine, as expected, is very quiet and it stays cool while running.

There are no speakers but audio in and out ports are present to allow for headphones/speakers and a microphone or some other audio source.

There is no CD/DVD/BD drive but one could be easily attached via the USB.

As far as running installed sapplications, performance appears to be good. However, any application that involved an on-line component had trouble running. My Wi-Fi router is providing for several computers, a PS3, an online printer and a PSP prior to EeeBox's arrival and performance was always adequate for each unit. The EeeBox, while properly configured - and the Wi-Fi monitor did show near-100% signal strength - was barely communicating with the outside world. It was consistently slow while its other fellow machines on the network were as happy and as fast as ever. It took me a couple of hours and several tries simply to install Google's Chrome browser. The Asus 'upgrades' site seemed to take its time to the extent that, several hours later, a 10MB upgrade received about one third of the data over HTTP and FTP failed altogether. The Adobe Flash player installed itself in about 20 minutes that that's how long it took for a Java update. Amazon's site was slow and so were Yahoo, CNN, Google News. All of the above was within the context of other of our computers whizzing along without any problems whatsoever. I did not test a 'wired' connection.

Conclusion and recommendation:
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When ordering this machine I was aware of its lacking a CD/DVD drive and speakers and its CPU, graphics and memory limitations and I accepted those limitations. But, as I stated from the beginning, I am returning it because of its unacceptably poor online performance over Wi-Fi. It is possible that there was something not quite right with this particular box so everyone should be aware that I am evaluating ONE specific machine here, the one that I received.

It is possible that the performance is better over a wired connection but I did not test that.

Had this machine performed better online, it would have been an easy 5-stars for design, ease of setup and functionality.

I bought this because my good computer with Windows XP crashed for the last time, could not be revived, and my expensive laser color printer would only run on XP. When I looked for another one with XP, they were hard to find since most have newer Windows versions. It is small and slim, smaller than my notebook, comes with lightweight, full size keyboard and mini mouse, and it started right up with my flat screen monitor. I bought a Belkin USB external dialup modem for about $29 since this comes without a modem, and it connected right up to the internet. It looks like it is set up for wireless, but I can only get dialup where I am. It runs my Photoshop, scanner, and color laser printer and everything else I had on my big computer. You will need a multi port USB connector if you want to run many things at once, since it has only 4 USB ports and the monitor, mouse, keyboard, and modem take up 4. I also added an external USB CD drive that I already had that takes up a port. The only drawback I can see is that it slows way down if you try to scan or print when the Norton Internet Security scan comes on. It is quite a bargain for the price.

The Asus EeeBox is a nice little package and takes up little space, but watch out. This little box packs very little punch. We constantly encounter delays with reads and writes, to the point where the software sometimes freezes and errors out. It works OK if you're writing a letter or updating a spreadsheet, but for applications that requires timing, ethernet transfers, video or still image playout, realtime operations, etc., you may want to pass on this one.

a great little computer. It is so small it was perfect for what we needed.