Asus has unveiled its very first Chromebox specifically designed to run Google’s web-centric operating system.
The uber-mini fanless Chromebox is equipped with an Intel Haswell SoC (Celeron 2955U), Ethernet, dual-band WiFi and a $179 price tag, scaling up based on specs (+ Core i7, etc).
Additional specs include 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI and DisplayPort, four USB 3.0 ports, a headset jack and an SD card slot.
According to Liliputing’s Brad Linder, Asus is equipping the little PCs with 16GB of solid state storage (SSD) and up to 4GB of RAM, with the entry-level version making do with just 2GB.
Plus, 100GB of supplemental cloud storage will be offered to users for free for two years via Google Drive.
”Like other devices running Chrome OS, the Asus Chromebox is designed primarily to run web apps — although web apps have come a long way in recent years,” Linder explained.
“With a starting price of $179 and Chrome hardware’s proven track record of allowing support for Ubuntu and other Linux distributions, this could be a small, cheap, hacker-friendly computer.”
The Asus Chromebox is slated to hit store shelves in March.
