Asus Eee box 206 (HDMI) reviewed

**warren213** · May 25th, 2009, 05:35 PM

Since this is my first post let me start off by saying hello and Thank you to all the admins and developers. Now with that said on to the reason for the post.

I have bought a Asus Eee box model 206 (the HDMI one) with the sole purpose of running boxee to my 42 Panasonic plasma TV (1080p)

Here are the specs for the box I have
Atom n270 1.6 processor
1 gig ram
160 GB 7200 rpm local HD
Bluetooth
Gigabit LAN
B/g/n 802.11
HDMI video out
ATI Radeon HD 3450 w/ 256MB DDRII

Out of the box:
It comes with an IR remote
USB IR repeater (about 3 feet long)
XP home sp3
vesa mount bracket for installation on the back of a TV or monitor
Stand, mouse, and keyboard
Hdmi cable
Hdmi to DVI cable

Pros:
Small (smaller than a Wii)
Quite (26 DB = not audible)
Gigabit LAN
External wireless antenna (b, g or N)
Bluetooth
Free remote that works in boxee right out of the box
Media card reader

Cons:
No raid (I use network storage anyway but would still be nice)
No optical drive (not an issue for me or could be solved with a USB external drive)
XP home

Before I choose to go this route I have installed boxee on a lot of other systems as a reference point:
On a friends ATV (worked nice by 1080p was lacking)
On an ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04 running on a dell d610 laptop (worked great, but I need the laptop of other stuff)
And windows XP pro and XP ULC edition on a dell mini 9 (other than the video card it’s just about the same spec as the EEE box 206 and it ran just fine)

so that the most people could find this review useful I have left this OS untouched for the time being , after all the testing has been done (and the new windows version is released) I will be reloading the OS to XP pro or XP media center so the box can join my home domain. For now I have all the normal tricks in place to make a Home box join a domain. I did remove a lot of bloat ware off the box before I started (NIS ,M$ live crap, star office and some others) All my media is hosted on windows boxes and is shared out using DFS mapped shares which I have then mapped using windows drive mapping on the local box. In boxee I just add a source manually and point it to the mapped drive. This has worked out the best for me so far.

With this setup I have tested so far:
Wireless G is slow and laggy, I did not try the N because I don’t have an N router but I did run my whole house with cat6 so I have opted to just run on the gigabit LAN which so far is working out Great.
I have tested 720p movies and they look great

Things I still want to test are:
1080p video,
Audio out of the eeebox directly to the receiver (currently using the HDMI to TV to then back the receiver)
Making all the remote buttons work (or making my harmony remote work on the IR repeater)

in the next few weeks I plan on having some better testing and information up , but as of right now I have it installed and working so if you have any question and anything you would like me to test please let me know

**marcel** · May 26th, 2009, 01:36 AM

this is great ..hopefully mid june the new version will be out and would like you to test it ..maybe help others out trying to install the version on this type of machine

**pax85** · May 26th, 2009, 03:50 AM

1080p would definately be interesting. If it won't play smooth then the 208 box should definately be able to play it.
I'm currently thinking about buying the 208 Box, a better nvidia ion than the current acer or the MacMini. I'm undecided yet.

**warren213** · May 27th, 2009, 01:59 PM

well still no update other than to say ordered a blue ray drive for another computer because downloading real 1080p HD from the net is hit or miss. The only way to have a good test is to create the media myself. Anyone know a good place to get some 1080 content for testing ? like trailers or previews that work in boxee

**PKKid** · May 28th, 2009, 09:39 AM

Good post, I was considering buying one of these..

**Astro** · May 28th, 2009, 05:15 PM

Is the keyboard and mouse are wireless?

**warren213** · May 28th, 2009, 08:22 PM

NO - not wireless. but i had a microsoft blue tooth keyboard and mouse from an old pc i had laying around and they work great.

i was going to junk the included combo because normally the included keyboard/mice are not really high quality but they are nicer than i was expecting SO they are worth keeping around as spares. One thing to note the keyboards is not a standard layout and looks more like a laptop keyboard. what i mean is there is no space around the arrow keys so all the keys are smushed together.

**Astro** · May 29th, 2009, 12:39 PM

Can it play games? WOW, Half-Life 2, Plant VS Zombies?

Have you tried to install windows 7 on it?

**warren213** · May 29th, 2009, 03:06 PM

I have not tried to load any games on it , I would think they would work just fine. Just check the hardware specs on the games box. i have no plans to load any games on it.

As for Windows 7 even after its out of RC1 i have no plans to load that either. unless i cant get it to work on XP (which is unlikely). i had thought about running win7 as a media center mostly for the DVR features but then i would have gotten a higher powered box and something with raid, larger HD space and external slot for a cablecard so i can DVR my HD cable feed.

also the win 7 cost is ridiculous rumored at over 200 bucks for the version i would want !!
thats the same price as a new Eee box 202 model