14 DAY TRIAL // We've seen mini-ITX motherboards and cases small enough to serve nettops, and now we get to see a couple of fully-configured systems of that type: the ASUS EeeBox EB1035 and EB1505.
Unlike other small form factor personal computers we've seen, these two aren't barebone nettops, meaning that they already have all the hardware they need.
That means no missing storage components or memory (barebone buyers have to buy them separately). But we digress.
The EB1035 and EB1505 from ASUS's EeeBox series both rely on the 1.1 GHz Celeron 847 central processing unit from Intel.
The amount of memory backing up the CPU is of 2 GB and 4 GB, respectively.
Meanwhile, storage space is provided by a hard disk drive whose capacity is of 500 GB, although the EB1035 does have something extra: a solid-state drive of 32 GB.
Obviously, since the capacity is so low, the SSD is not meant to store much, only the operating system and frequently used files.
Since most mainboards, even some mini-ITX ones, support Intel Smart Response technology (SSD caching), this permits for better overall system performance, not to mention quick boot-up times.
A final difference between the two aforementioned nettops is that the EB1505 has a slim optical drive as well (Blu-ray or DVD Writer).
The systems share the rest of the specifications, which are as follows: a 4-in-1 card reader, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, and two video connectors (D-Sub and HDMI).
Unfortunately, we have no prices to impart. ASUS should eventually disclose them, but it is more likely that online stores will beat it to the punch. Seeing how an unannounced ultrabook, featuring one of the fabled AMD Radeon HD 8000 discrete GPUs, somehow surfaced online before anyone else could do anything about it, chances are that the same will happen to the EB1035 and EB1505.
