We finally got our hands on Asus' new Eee Top ET1602 $599 touch-screen all-in-one PC long enough to write a full review. We can't say we completely love it, but it does offer some unique usage scenarios.
The Asus Eee Top, with wireless mouse and keyboard (options still unconfirmed for the U.S.).
(Credit: Asus)What we like most about the Eee Top is that it's small enough and light enough to move from room to room, but with an even smaller footprint than a laptop. It achieves that space savings because the touch screen lets you go without a keyboard entirely. We can imagine someone placing the Eee Top on a countertop or a shelf without it completely dominating the space.
As it's powered by a 1.6GHz Atom processor, the Eee Top is not a serious computer for work or play, even for a budget PC. It will get on the Web, play music, and perform all the basic tasks you might expect it to, but even opening a browser can feel slow. We also don't find Asus' custom touch software as polished as that of HP's TouchSmart line. Then again, this system will only cost $599 when it hits the U.S. retail market on March 9. TouchSmarts start at $1,050.
Asus stopped by to show us the touch interface of its upcoming Eee Top, the Atom-powered all-in-one desktop. Check out the video above. It will start shipping in early March.
The Eee Top is interesting for many reasons, but most certainly because, at least for now, it's the cheapest all-in-one desktop PC on the market. At $599 it comes in at almost half the price of the all-in-ones available from Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, Lenovo, Sony, and Apple.
Though it's certainly fancy with its 16-inch touch screen, custom Asus Easy Mode menu, and MacBook-esque tile keyboard (with pop-out stylus), the low price is achieved by what's not included: No Vista, no superfast Intel processor. It's a Nettop at its core, running Windows XP with an Atom processor.
As a result, the Eee Top is sort of a strange hybrid in terms of what machines it competes with. It's a Nettop, but the only one that comes with a monitor built in. (See Shuttle's X27 Mini, and Asus' own Eee Box.)
On the other hand, it's a touch-screen living room or kitchen PC, which would place it in the same category as HP's TouchSmart, except it's much cheaper ($599 versus $1,299) and much less sophisticated in terms of styling, design, and software.
Asus would tell you it has no competitors with this PC, and it's right--for now.... Read more
Asus' all-in-one Eee PC is coming into focus. Announced back in January with the Eee Monitor moniker, the company's all-in-one PC is now called the Eee Top and two models have popped up on the Asus Web site. The company is expected to formally introduce the Eee Top Thursday in Taipei, according to IDG.
Details are lacking on Asus' rather vague product pages for the ET1602 and ET1603, but the systems will reportedly feature a 15.6-inch touch-screen display (down from the roughly 20 inches of screen space mentioned in January) and the 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor found in virtually every Netbook. Other rumored specs include 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and a 1.3-megapixel Webcam.
The higher-end ET1603 bumps you up to discrete ATI Mobility Radeon HD3450 graphics. Asus mentions both Vista Business and XP atop the product pages for its Eee Top systems, but I can't imagine anything more than XP on such a low-end system. Lastly, pricing has yet to be announced, so we are left to wonder if Asus will hit the $499 price it quoted in January.
As for looks, the Eee Top looks like it won't offend. The shiny white and rounded Eee Top looks like it might have been designed by someone who had earlier worked on the Apple iBook.
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