Asus Has an Nvidia Ion Nettop Dual-core Atom

By Marcus Yam
published

Asus joins the Ionic party.

For a ready-to-go, low power home theatre PC, it's tough to not like any Nvidia Ion-based nettop. Unfortunately, it's taken some time for the Nvidia Ion to start making its way through OEM's product pipelines, but finally we're starting to see more of them.

Asus is the latest to show off a small packaged Nvidia Ion nettop that packs the Intel Atom 330 dual core processor. Asus characterizes its EeeBox PC EB1012 as "High Definition Entertainment in a 1L-Sized PC," which appears to be accurate as it is fairly compact in size and has HDMI and S/PDIF outputs.

It holds a 250 GB HDD, but you can expand storage easily to hold more media thanks to six USB ports and even a flash memory card reader (handy for displaying your photos). The rest of the specifications read like that of any other high-end nettop, complete with wireless N and gigabit LAN.

The EeeBox PC EB1012 will ship with Windows Vista Home Premium, meaning that it doesn't have to be restricted or held back for the release of Windows 7, but should still come with the free upgrade. Find out more on Asus' product page.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
17 Comments Comment from the forums
  • christop
    How much???
    Reply
  • bigalfantasy2004
    Full Windows license, so I'm sure it will be $450+.
    Reply
  • daggs
    can they play FHD without any problems?
    Reply
  • warezme
    It actually looks like a cool Mac mini, without the Big Brother stigma.
    Reply
  • megamanx00
    I guess it's good if you want something small and stylin.
    Reply
  • JasonAkkerman
    Daggscan they play FHD without any problems?
    Most ION platforms, including those with an single core Atoms have been proven to handle Blu-Ray and H.264 decoding just fine.
    Reply
  • Humans think
    @daggs yes because the gpu takes near all the processing strain when decoding

    @warezme it is actually a lot different than mac mini
    Reply
  • JasonAkkerman
    ION is a home theaters dream media interface. There are so many options for OS, and software that you are sure to find the right setup for yourself. It's quite!! It's low power. And can server as a real web browser.

    Add an SSD, and a bluetooth keyboard and mouse and that thing and you are in business.
    Reply
  • thackstonns
    really everything I have read said that ion sucked at hd. Just a little less than intels integrated chipset
    Reply
  • zengrath
    I still do not see the purpose to Mini-Pc's like this. If I'm going to want something smaller and more portable i want a laptop, a good laptop can still play most of my games and do lots of the demanding things that i need. Otherwise ism going to disk with my full size tower, first of all it's much easier to add things, upgrade parts, etc. 2nd if I'm going to have a full size tower then I'm going for pure performance, not minimizing space, or else otherwise i would just get a laptop...
    Reply