ASUS seriously wants to conquer that part of market which was always ruled by Apple - starting with "all-in-one" PCs, and now with a miniature "PC in a box" models. Apple was one of the first companies, who offered fully functional PC in a small and compact form. They named the main idea of these PCs with a strange letter combination: BYODKM, which stands for "Bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse" - this, by the words of Apple, is all you need to connect and have a working PC. However, Apple discontinued Mac Mini production, so ASUS has a lot of possibilities to overcome its competitor from Cupertino. In the recent press-release, ASUS presented two new models: ASUS Eee Box B204 and B206, which are continuing the Eee Box lineup. Let's look what they added in the new models, details follow.ASUS Eee Box B204 and B206 look just like previous models looked like. The only difference is hardware, which is now more advanced, and is fully prepared for our HD era. Largest improvement over the past models is updated graphics card that now possess HD capabilities: both models has ATI Radeon HD 3400 inside, with 256 MB of graphics memory and HDMI output. Main processor remained the same - Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz. Other hardware details include 1 GB of RAM, 160 GB HDD (SATA II), card reader for many card types, Wi-Fi 802.11n, Gigabit Ethernet, DVI port and four USB 2.0 ports. For an operating system ASUS chose Windows XP Home edition that is preinstalled on every Eee Box PC. In addition, they offer Eee Storage feature, which equals in 10 GB of online storage. One can ask, what is the difference between B206 and B204 models? The differences are simple: B204 has Bluetooth and internal battery, while B206 hasn't.
On the multimedia side, both mini PCs have some bonus features. They have remote control included, so user will be capable of using Eee Box from the distance without any hassle with settings. ASUS packed them with its own multimedia program, named Eee Cinema, which is made for simple and comfortable way to play HD video.
Although new ASUS gadgets look pretty interesting, they are only planned for release. These mini PCs will be a good choice for a media center PC, not only because they offer quite good performance in a small and elegant case, but also they are much quieter than usual PC.
