Asus Announces Small Form Factor 'Chromebox' PCs

MojoKid writes "Asus stepped out this morning with something new for the Chrome OS powered hardware crowd, called a "Chromebox" small form factor PC. Just as Google has been evangelizing with its Chromebook notebook initiative, the pitch for these Chromebox systems is that they're capable of doing everything you need to do in today's connected world. While not everyone will totally agree with that marketing pitch — gaming, 3D modeling, and a host of specialized tasks are better suited for a PC with higher specs — there's certainly a market for these types of devices. They're low cost, fairly well equipped, and able to handle a wide variety of daily computing chores. There are two SKUs being released in the U.S. The first starts at $179 and sports an Intel Celeron 2955U processor, and the second features an Intel Core i3 4010U CPU (no mention of price just yet), both of which are based on Intel's 4th generation Haswell CPU architecture. Beyond the processor, these fan-less boxes come with two SO-DIMM memory slots with 2GB or 4GB of DDR3-1600 RAM, a 16GB SSD, a GbE LAN port, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, 2-in-1 memory card reader, four USB 3.0 ports, HDMI output, a DisplayPort, an audio jack, and a Kensington Lock. ASUS also includes a VESA mount kit with each Chromebox, and Google tosses in 100GB of Google Drive space free for two years."

Brilliant for business use.

[Dzimas]

These things might sell quite well to libraries and businesses that need clients for web-based apps. They're also ideal second (or third) machines for households with kids. Maintaining my kid's Windows-based machine takes time and effort and Chrome would do away with that while still allowing him to use the sites and apps that matter the most -- Youtube, Google Apps for homework and gmail. He doesn't need or use much more.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. At $329.

Minor difference there.

Cost. It's important.

Grandma

[goombah99]

This or a chromebook is the ideal computer for grandma who just needs to check her e-mail and surf a bit. I know because I got one for myself then when I could not stand Chrome-OS's annoying limitations I transferred to an elderly relative. CHromeOS is a wonderful concept and I thought it would be a panacea but it just blows for anyone but the most primitive user.

things you can't do without pain:
1) this network OS can't actually do any local networking.
2) can't mount a local network disk
3) can't print to a local printer by itself
4) can't run any other OS practically. Oh sure you can install linux, but then the whole machine goes to crap. It won't autoupdate chomeos any longer once you install linux. And it will erase the linux partition if you touch the wrong key at boot time. Some nut jobs have told "just reflash your roms so doesn't do that". Which sort of proves my point.
6) you can't run most software without an internet connection.
7) all the chromebooks I've used don't handle many common external screens properly.
8) there's no granularity of security. your username and password is your login. you can't sever the connection. You can't tell what exactly APPS do with the permissions you give them.
9) virtually no documentation and fickle SDK capabilities at googles pleasure.