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."

Comments

Really?

[recoiledsnake]

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.

Wasn't one launched by Samsung a few years ago and utterly flopped?
http://www.engadget.com/2012/0...

Re:Really?

[tangelogee]

I suppose it depends on the cost. The Samsung box was $329, which you could find a PC for about the same price. If they can bring it down to about $100, it would definitely be a lot more tempting.

Re:Really?

[tripleevenfall]

This will definitely make 2014 the Year of ChromeOS on the desktop!

Re:Really?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I imagine that the problem with an all-in-one (aside from being harder to hit impulse-buy pricepoints) is that if you want to go all in one, you either have to bury yourself in incrementally different SKUs, or make potentially alienating decisions about what monitor sizes your customers will want, both today and until you refresh the product.

That isn't trivial at the best of times, budgets and priorities vary (though easier for Apple, since they can eliminate the approximately-mini-tower competition by simply not building anything except all-in-ones between the mini and the Pro); but it's probably particularly touchy for ChromeOS: Users who want simplicity might well be willing to spend plenty for a nice wall of pixels (or be old people and need the giant text), while users who are cheapskates or kitting out a thin-client toildrome at minimum cost want 17 inch TN panel shit, and are only refraining from reusing last year's monitors because people kept messing with the extra cabling.

Given ChromeOS' somewhat weird demographics, I wouldn't want to be roped into choosing a screen size.

So... Linux?

[CanHasDIY]

Can you put Linux on the thing?

It would be nice to have something I could use to write up blog posts and the like, without having to resort to touchscreen keyboards or breaking out the 5 lb, 17" powerhouse I use for *real* work.

Re:So... Linux?

[The MAZZTer]

Chrome OS uses a special bootloader and some other stuff, but you can install a Linux-based OS on a separate partition (after resizing the partitions) and dual boot it, as long as you can enable "developer mode" on the box so it will boot unsigned code (there's a switch for it on my Chromebook behind the battery). Or you can install one right inside Chrome OS with a chroot, if that's sufficient, again it requires developer mode turned on.

You could probably just blow everything away and put Linux on it alone, but I dunno how you'd go about doing that.

Re:So... Linux?

[Tough Love]

You set developer mode in bios and poof, you own your device again. So far, no chromeos vender has locked that out, if they ever do then the devices just become training wheels for the internet.

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:SKU?

[Gerald]

Stock keeping unit. Kind of like UUIDs for things you buy in stores. I take it you've never worked in retail?

(I don't care that you don't care. Others might.)

FU Microsoft

[xtal]

"Thanks for Windows 8!"

Heh heh.

Cheap hardware. No MS tax. Noms.

Re:FU Microsoft

[Drew617]

You better believe there's a Google tax, though. You pay in a less direct way maybe, but it's there.

No shilling here, I still use Google products where no convenient alternatives exist. But don't allow yourself to believe the services are free.

Given Google's (as perceived by me) direction lately, I'm to the point where I'd much rather pay cash (to some non-evil entity) for a platform than become their product. Seems like a cool box and a good idea but ChromeOS would keep me from even touching one of these.

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.

Re:Grandma

[goombah99]

I meant that your google user name and password are your login. y'know the same one you use for your google wallet, and gmail.

10) Ironically, it ChromeOS wont run chrome screen sharing so you can't maintain one of these remotely.
11) you can't share the devices disk to other local computers, so it's not useful as a personal server or media station

Re:Do Want

[Tough Love]

Fanless? Can I swap the SSD and slap Windows 7 on the i3 model?

If you put Windows on it (good luck with that) you will probably need a fan.

Been wanting a BeagleBone Black...

[aaarrrgggh]

If this type of box was under $100, I would jump on it. At $65 I would buy several. Currently trying to get a BeagleBone Black (when they get stock again) for the same general purpose, but being able to drive a 4k display would be worth a little extra.

Re:Further Review

[viperidaenz]

and how big is your mothers power bill?

Re:Celeron?

[PRMan]

The budget chips have grown up and are now capable.

Re:Cost is importand

[dbIII]

High school is supposed to be about education and not training. Also there's no point training somebody on MS Office 2012 when it's going to be 2018 when they graduate and the interface has changed again. Instead it's worth educating them in general terms and any word processor, spreadsheet etc will do for that.
So your carefully crafted deliberate seed of doubt fails when exposed to a bullshit detector.