When Asus announced last week that they had three models of Chromebox being released in March, the details on availability in Australia were not generally known. But, it appears that there will be at least one Chromebox released in Australia with possibly a second i7 based Chromebox coming as well.
Asus have advised that at this stage a Celeron 2955U based Chromebox will be coming to Australian shores. Retailers, dates and pricing will be confirmed closer to the actual launch but for now, here are the specs on the confirmed Asus Chromebox that will be arriving :
- Intel® Celeron™ 2955U Processor
- 2GB DDR3-1600MHz RAM (2xSO-DIMM)
- Integrated – Intel® HD Graphics
- 16GB M.2 (NGFF) SSD, 100GB of Google Drive space for limited time
- LAN (RJ45) Port 10/100/1000Mbit/s, Dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n; Bluetooth V4.0
- 2-in-1 Card Reader, 4xUSB3.0, HDMI, DisplayPort, Mic-in/Speaker-out, Kensington Lock slot
- 65W DC Power
- 4.88×4.88×1.65”
When asked directly about the i7 based Chromebox, that’s assumed to be the model used in the ‘Chromebox for Meetings’ package that will see Google tackle the corporate world of video conferencing; Asus simply stated that they are still in talks with Google regarding availability of the i7 based model.
With pricing still up in the air, based on previous releases from the US that have come to Australian shores, it’s safe to assume that the US$179 price tag will end up at the $250 mark in Australian retailers. But, will that price the base model Asus Chromebox out of the market? What say you?
This thing is stacked for the price (and compared to other Chromeboxes). Does anyone know if you can cast to it?
You can cast from it.
Could be OK if it could support XBMC.
$250AUD for the base model of a web browser in a box, Wrong Price, far too expensive.
$50AUD for the base model of a web browser in a box, Right Price.
Intel inside makes a big difference to the cost, seems to me an arm based chromebox would be have a much better price.
I think 2014 will be a big year for what you will be able to do in chrome/chrome os.
problem is that ARM CPU are still about 1/4 of the power of a Intel x86 and web browsers can do with as much CPU power as you can get
Nice to have an ASUS wireless keyboard and mouse for th e chromebox, but the the photo on the asus us site has the keyboard is missing the number pad, which the Samsung chromeos keyboard one has.
From tomshardware
“Asus notes that support for 4KJ/UHD 4K resolution requires a Core-i3 or higher SKU”
Good to have a cheap option but having the best graphics possible means getting at least the core-i3 for me.
Agreed. Something that can do 4K would make a neat and cheap HTPC.