Asus EeeBox PC (formerly Asus Eee Box) is a

nettop A mini PC (or miniature PC, nettop, or Smart Micro PC) is a small-sized, inexpensive, low-power, Legacy free PC, legacy-free desktop computer, desktop computer designed for basic tasks such as Web navigation, web browsing, accessing web appl ...

computer line from ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated, and a part of the

Asus Eee Asus Eee is a family of products by Asus, AsusTek Computer Inc. The product family began with the release of the Asus Eee PC, Eee PC subnotebook in 2007; since then, the product family has Diversification (marketing strategy), diversified into a ...

product family. First released on August 11, 2008, the Asus EeeBox PC series is marketed as a small, light, inexpensive and energy-efficient counterpart to the

Asus Eee PC The ASUS Eee PC is a netbook computer line from Asus, and a part of the ASUS Eee product family. At the time of its introduction in late 2007, it was noted for its combination of a lightweight, Linux-based operating system, solid-state drive (S ...

netbook A netbook is a small-sized laptop computer; they were primarily sold from 2007 until around 2013, designed mostly as a means of accessing the Internet and being significantly less expensive than regular-sized laptops. At their inception in l ...

subnotebook Subnotebook, also called ultraportable, superportable, handtop, mini notebook or mini laptop, is a type of laptop computer that is smaller and lighter than a typical notebook-sized laptop. Types and sizes As typical laptop sizes have decreas ...

laptop series. Its

motherboard A motherboard, also called a mainboard, a system board, a logic board, and informally a mobo (see #Nomenclature, "Nomenclature" section), is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems. It ho ...

employs Splashtop technology called ''Express Gate'' by Asus.

Features

"Instant-On"

The EeeBox PC motherboard features a form of embedded

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

, referred to in the user manual as ''Express Gate'', a result of the ASUS SplashTop software. In the EeeBox PC implementation, the user is presented with a customised Linux desktop a few seconds after powering up the EeeBox PC, with the option of launching a web browser, an online chat application, a

file manager A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage computer files, files and folder (computing), folders. The most common Computer file#Operations, operations performed on files or groups of files incl ...

, a photo browser or a

Skype Skype () was a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for IP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also had instant messaging, file transfer, ...

application, without having to load the main operating system. If the user does not select any of these options, the main operating system (typically Windows XP Home) loads automatically.

Low power consumption

The EeeBox PC uses an external power supply, but due to the low power requirements, this unit is physically smaller than most external computer laptop power supplies. At December 2008, the supplied UK power adapter is a small rectangular "in-line" block measuring approximately 30 mm × 35 mm wide, and around 90 mm long (not including cable stress relief grommets).

"Zero footprint" option

As of December 2008, the EeeBox PC comes with two mounting options, a desktop stand, and a monitor mounting. The monitor mounting option consists of a heavy plate with mounting holes designed to fit to the

VESA VESA (), formally known as Video Electronics Standards Association, is an American standards organization, technical standards organization for computer display standards. The organization was incorporated in California in July 1989To retrieve ...

100 or VESA 75 mount area found on the back of many flat-screen monitors (

Flat Display Mounting Interface The Flat Display Mounting Interface (FDMI), also known as VESA Mounting Interface Standard (MIS) or colloquially as VESA mount, is a family of standards defined by the Video Electronics Standards Association for mounting flat panel computer display ...

). When mounted on the back of a monitor, the EeeBox PC does not require any desk space. With the addition of a compatible USB "

TV tuner A TV tuner card is a kind of television tuner that allows television signals to be received by a computer. Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to record television programs onto a hard disk much like the digital vi ...

" dongle the EeeBox PC can be used as a

digital television adapter A digital television adapter (DTA), commonly known as a converter box, DTV converter , or decoder box, is a television tuner that receives a digital television (DTV) transmission, and converts the digital signal into an analog signal that can be r ...

, and add both TV reception and recording facilities to a flat computer monitor.

Robustness

The EeeBox PC hard drive has a hidden recovery partition containing an image of the factory OS installation. This allows the EeeBox PC's operating system to be reset to its initial factory state without the need for any external media or optical disc hardware (although conventional

recovery disc The terms Recovery disc (or Disk), Rescue Disk/Disc and Emergency Disk all refer to a capability to boot from an external device, possibly a thumb drive, that includes a self-running operating system: the ability to be a boot disk/Disc that runs i ...

s are also included). The permanently embedded Linux system also guarantees a working

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

and a certain degree of functionality (such as web browsing) even without a separate functioning operating system; on most computer systems, the only embedded functionality in this situation would be a very limited set of menu-driven

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization d ...

Features

"Instant-On"

Low power consumption

"Zero footprint" option

Robustness

Models

See also

References

External links