Asus EeeBox Packs Dual USB 3.0 Ports for One Hot Nettop

Asus, you had us at HELO, now you deliver us the USB THReee we've been waiting for. Apparently unfazed by the economy's stagnant state, they are still popping out innovations with their nettop line. Still riding high on the netbook craze that they cashed in on, they continue to hawk their nettop line with the EeeBox EB1501U. Tiny desktop systems claiming sufficient performance for everyday tasks and a much greener, low power consumption footprint. The most surprising addition is the two USB 3.0 ports right next to the slot-loading DVD drive. The Atom processor may be close to its limit moving 5GB/s of data around, but we'd rather spend our money getting close to the limit than staying away from it.

This is a smart move by Asus to add support for faster peripherals early. USB 3.0 makes this a much more future-proof desktop alternative. Large, high powered machines may still run years from now, but their bulk ultimately limits their usefulness. Laptops and tiny desktops can live on for many years performing niche tasks. Hand-me-down laptops make great learning tools for kids as well as gaming stations or even the heart of a MAME cabinet. A nettop may make a decent media center today, and it will make a fine webmail tool tomorrow and network storage device after that. Unfortunately, this doesn't pack the even lower powered ION 2 chipset that's all the rage, but it should have enough power to run most tasks you can think of today and tomorrow. Pricing and availability details are still lacking as of this writing.