14 DAY TRIAL // Google's Chrome operating system (Chrome OS) was originally made for laptops that do everything in the cloud, but it wasn't long before the idea extended to the desktop market. That said, behold the ASUS Chromebox as it finally goes up for pre-order.
Chromebooks, laptops running Chrome OS as it were, have been around for years, but they didn't really start winning people over until recently.
That was mostly due to the fairly big change from local storage to cloud-based storage and application running. The unfamiliarity of the OS compared to Windows is another thing.
Still, Chromebooks have scored a few sales deals with some companies, and even some consumers, so now PC makers are looking at the desktop front.
And since Chrome OS is a low-resource OS, mini PCs and nettops are the way to go, hence the small form factor of all Chromeboxes.
ASUS has just released its Chromebox, although that's not altogether accurate. The ASUS Chromebox was “revealed” a while ago, but only now it has shown up on the pages of retailers.
And that's all it did really, show up. It's not shipping yet. It's only there so you can place a pre-order for it if you so desire, as long as you have $179 / €129 you can part with.
ASUS Chromebox-M004U is powered by an Intel Celeron 2955U central processing unit, which is backed by 2 GB of DDR3-1600 MHz RAM (random access memory).
The CPU has Integrated HD graphics, and that's all the video you get because there's no room for an add-in card.
ASUS has also included 10/100/1000 LAN (Gigabit Ethernet), dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi (wireless networking) and Bluetooth 4.0 mobile communication (with phones, tablets, headphones, etc.).
Physical connectivity is covered by a 2-in-1 card reader, four USB 3.0 ports, a Kensington Lock, mic/speaker audio jack, and two video outputs (HDMI, DisplayPort). As for storage, ASUS included 16 GB of NAND Flash. An SSD (solid-state drive) to be precise.
An ASUS Chromebox priced at $396 / €285 is approaching as well, powered by an Intel Core i3 CPU (with a better GPU and higher clocks) and twice the RAM backing it up. The Chromebox for Meetings is also coming, featuring a Core i7 CPU, an external speaker, remote control, and an HD camera. Not sure how much that last one costs though.
All of the ASUS Chromeboxes will ship with Quickoffice pre-installed, Google Docs, some other Google Apps, 15GB of free Google+ Photos storage and 100GB of Google Drive storage (for two years). As expected from devices that do most everything in the cloud.
