ASUS EeeBox PC EB1007 gets official, gets Intel Atom D410 and USB 3.0

At CeBIT 2010, at the beginning of March, we saw some interesting models flashing at ASUS booth. Many of them were shown as upcoming, so naturally, in a month we got some of those officially announced. ASUS has recently announced its EeeBox PC EB1007 nettop, but things have changed to good since CeBIT. I mean, of course, ASUS’ promise to equip as many products as they can with USB 3.0 ports. So they did it with EeeBox PC EB1007 as well. However, things are not so jolly well with EB1007 nettop.


Before I explain my opinion on the latest EeeBox PC, I want you know its specs first.

ASUS EeeBox PC EB1007 specifications:


• Processor: Intel Atom D410, 1.66GHz, 512KB L2 cache


• Chipset: Intel NM10 (Pine Trail) w/integrated graphics


• System memory: 1GB DDR2, 800MHz


• Hard drive: 2.5-inch 160GB


• LAN: 10/100/1000Mbps


• Wireless: 802.11b/g/n, 2.4GHz


• USB ports: USB 3.0 x 3, USB 2.0 x 3


• Dimensions: 8.78" x 7" x 1" (22.3cm x 17.8cm x 2.7cm)


• Weight: 2.58lbs (1.17kg)


• OS: Windows XP Home


• Case color: black or white

Now, the last bit worries me most. Not that I»m saying something against good old XP. On the ground of its own abilities a nettop with specs like above is a very good machine. Chances are, as long as you don’t start an unbearably heavy application, it will never drop a slightest hint about sluggishness and/or be unstable. But from the end-user’s point of view it would at least be better to have Windows 7 Starter as an option. And why doesn’t it? The part of the reason is Intel’s integrated GPU.

If we look through ASUS’ EeeBox lineup, we see that machines running Windows 7 have their graphics accelerated by NVIDIA ION or other discrete graphics unit. And we know that ASUS is planning to be one of the first to equip their devices with ION 2. This will affect the price while EeeBox PC EB1007 will stay as cheap as possible (the actual price as well as availability is yet unknown). But then ASUS has built it around Pine Trail platform with industrie’s absolute best USB 3.0 SuperSpeed technology. This means that a day will come when ASUS entry-level nettops will run Windows 7.

So, what we have here is probably the last one of the dying breed. If that doesn’t turn you off, ASUS EeeBox PC EB1007 will serve you well, if on the other hand you are looking forward to buy something progressive and future-proof – hold out for ION 2.