Wow-Eee

I've just received an Asus Eee-Box which I've had on pre-order for the last few weeks.

One word: Wow!

This thing is amazing - it's size has to be seen to be believed, especially the thickness, and I love that it comes with a Vesa mounting bracket so you can attach it to the back of your monitor for storage!

I ran it up last night, and it works exactly as expected. It comes with WinXP Home by default and I'm as yet undecided whether I should replace that with Ubuntu, however seeing as the Windows licence has already been paid, there's less of an argument.

It took only 15 minutes for me to get my TV software installed and immediately I was watching streamed TV from the server. I opened the TV Guide and could see all the programmes. All that client-server work seems to have paid off!

There were three areas I was concerned about before buying this device:

1) Did it have a powerful enough graphics card to display high resolution widescreen on an LCD TV?
2) Was the Atom processor enough to play back a minimum of 720p HD?
3) How quiet was it? Would it be noticeable in a lounge type environment?

All, I'm happy to report, work perfectly. The graphics chip is one pinched from a laptop as far as I can see, and it can produce 1280x1024 without a problem, probably more (although my monitors don't support higher as yet!)

The Atom has been a very pleasant surprise. It out-performs my old AMD 1.5Ghz PC with no issues, and plays back 720p smoothly. I've not tried it with 1080p yet, but I will do and will report back. No doubt the graphics card has something to do with this.

In terms of the noise level, it's extremely hard to hear it at all. Yes there is a fan, but unless you're within 2 feet with no other noise in the room, you can't hear it.

Overall from my first hours with this PC, I'm hugely impressed, especially what it can do for the price - just £200.

I'm going to get another one shortly for another room so that any TV/Music/Video/Web/Email can be tapped into anywhere in the house.

Finally I'm realising the vision I've had for so long now, an affordable networked home.