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Asus Chromebox M004U Desktop PC - USD $181.91 Delivered from Amazon.com

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Asus Chromebox M004U Desktop PC - USD $181.91 Delivered from Amazon.comAffiliate
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buzzed on 22/07/2014 - 12:26 amazon.com (728 clicks)
Last edited 22/07/2014 - 12:31 by 1 other user
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Amazon.com are now offering the Asus Chromebox for shipping to Australia, for USD $181.95, including delivery (approx AUD $201 at current exchange rates).

This desktop PC runs Chrome OS (the same as chromebooks), has an Intel Celeron 2955U 1.4 GHz processor, 2GB of ram, and 16GB of flash memory storage.

I have been watching this item for a while, waiting for it to be able to shipped to Australia, and think that it is an absolute steal for the price, whether to use as a main PC, or an extra home media PC to connect to a TV.

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Cheers and enjoy :)

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  • c64 on 22/07/2014 - 12:42

    can a chromebox do anything useful?

      • Indomietable on 22/07/2014 - 14:49

        Wow .. that was a cheap shot by Microsoft. I dont know why they felt threatened by Chromebook ..

        • ozhunter on 22/07/2014 - 15:45

          I dont know why they felt threatened by Chromebook

          http://www.zdnet.com/chromebook-gains-microsoft-worries-7000…

          20 new chromebooks to be released this year.

        • scrimshaw on 22/07/2014 - 16:28
          +1

          I dont know why they felt threatened by Chromebook ..

          Actually they have a good reason to, the education industry in America is buying into Chromebooks because they're cheap and easy to administrate. Google provides the education institute with everything they need to control the Chromebooks and set group policies, block sites and preinstall apps. It's like a web based version of Active Directory that runs even on tablets.

          Since everything is cloud based they don't have to worry about acquiring software licenses, don't need to install anti-virus, and most importantly, not have to worry about providing tech support to students because of its simplicity,

        • Miami Mall Alien on 22/07/2014 - 19:11
          -1

          @scrimshaw:

          Google and the education system working hand-in-hand. What could possibly go wrong?

      • scrimshaw on 22/07/2014 - 14:54
        +1

        That is terrible advertising. It's true that a chromebook can't do much offline but it's not a brick, at least not with offline app support now.

        • ozhunter on 22/07/2014 - 15:47
          +2

          Most people I know wouldn't even be on any computer, tablet, smartphone if they weren't connected to the internet.

        • nmartin84 on 22/07/2014 - 18:48

          @ozhunter:

          hehe yep, the only time I want to do anything offline anymore is when I am watching tv/movies…gamers will want games but meh.

  • bchliu on 22/07/2014 - 12:42
    +6

    You are probably better off buying an Intel NUC for a similar price here and install chrome os yourself. at least you have the flexibility of moving to another os if required.

    • cheapbloke on 22/07/2014 - 13:14

      how much would that be for similar specs?

      • Stefce on 22/07/2014 - 13:20
        +3

        The gigabyte brix had the 2955u for around the same price locally, though this was without ram or ssd/hdd; however pccasegear doesn't sell them anymore :(

        The only other NUC you could get for a similar price would be the N2820, which has heaps of issues with the CPU architecture, hence Intel discontinued them.

        That and the fact that the 2955u benchmarks 52% higher, go for the chromebox!

    • bchliu on 22/07/2014 - 13:33
      +1

      Here you go guys. MWave has the bottom end NUC (Celeron, similar specs) for $139.99 (offer ends 25/7)

      http://www.mwave.com.au/product/intel-dn2820fykh0-nuc-barebo…

      Add 4GB RAM (@$45) with a bootable flash drive or low end SSD.

      Would be comparable to this deal in price. But with Australian warranty, locally delivered (or picked up in Sydney) and much more flexibility.

    • Namesareapain on 22/07/2014 - 14:53

      You can install other OSes on this, took me two seconds to find out how.

  • zacsg1 on 22/07/2014 - 12:44

    16gb is not much… Good for people that use it for the net only.

    Edit can you use an external hdd with it?

    • mangoo1 on 22/07/2014 - 12:59

      I think you can still upgrade it if you want.

  • Stefce on 22/07/2014 - 13:03

    I'll just leave this here….

    http://www.extremetech.com/computing/132300-unleash-your-chr…

    • bchliu on 22/07/2014 - 13:35

      Why? just get a NUC, you can multiboot ChromeOS, Linux, Windows, Unix, DOS, blah to your heart's content.

      • goobar on 22/07/2014 - 13:41
        +2

        The 2955U CPU in this chromebox is much faster than the N2820 in the NUC, and when you add the cost RAM + SSD to the NUC the total cost is around the same.

        • bchliu on 22/07/2014 - 13:49
          -4

          realistically.. the CPU means almost nothing in ChromeOS. There is very little apps that will utilise all that power in the first place. It will run just as fine in lower end ARM processors so not sure where the 50%+ CPU processing power will be used unless you plan to open up quite a many flash enabled tab's or something.

        • Stefce on 22/07/2014 - 13:57

          @bchliu: The CPU is not for chrome, its for multi booting a desktop OS, xbmcbuntu here i come :D

  • goobar on 22/07/2014 - 13:29

    Was looking at this yesterday and it did not ship to Australia, not sure what has changed since then!

    I think this would make an awesome TV Box. Get Plex through Chrome store and this makes a cheap and powerful net viewer and media player. As mentioned above, this is 50% faster than the celeron NUC and at ~$50 more, already includes RAM and small 16GB drive.

    • pensionday on 22/07/2014 - 13:57

      I use a htpc proper, so I may be naive, but wouldn't Apple tv or android stick be more cost effective, if not better, than using one of these purely for tv? I understand as a pc replacement but not tv?

      • goobar on 22/07/2014 - 14:10

        Yes this would make a cheap web browsing box.

        I was thinking for my use as a content streamer to replace my cheap android stick. The stick is alright, but struggles with high bitrate media due to lack of grunt/crappy wifi and is just generally not very polished. It's also not that good as a net browser (at least my crappy one wasn't, newer ones may be better)

  • Marky66 on 22/07/2014 - 13:42

    I bought one of these a few months ago for about $40 more.

    I was hoping to use it to stream movies from a NAS to a TV until I found there was no native network explorer. Google wants you to play off the SSD or the cloud. I was also going to use it as a browser.

    I see goobar has mentioned plex. Can one browse your network with plex?

    At the moment it's not being used and I've got a chromecast plugged in instead.

    • goobar on 22/07/2014 - 13:49

      You can't browse your network, but surely another chrome app would be able to do that?

      You will need a Windows or Mac based PC/server or powerful NAS to run Plex Media Server (free). This catalogs and organises your media content so that you can view it on media players like smartphones/tablets, etc.

      I have not tried the Plex client on Chromebox so don't know how good that, but the versions on android and iOS are both excellent.

      • bchliu on 22/07/2014 - 13:59
        -4

        And.. you were saying?? Get this Asus Chromebox for ChromeOS because it is 50% more powerful in CPU? hmm..

        • goobar on 22/07/2014 - 14:05
          -1

          I'm sorry did I hurt your feelings somewhere?

          I just mentioned the facts- that this much faster than the entry level NUC. I would probably get this over the NUC for snappier browsing and more grunt for HD streaming/media consumption.

        • bchliu on 22/07/2014 - 18:07

          The NUC is perfectly capable of doing all that plus more. Computing power has gone way beyond the capabilities to do this. Even a recent mobile phone or tablet can do all this without much issues at very reasonable speeds.
          So.. unless you get this box to do some hardcore 3D gaming or CAD or Rendering, then it doesnt matter if you have a Celery in it or an i7. It makes very little difference for the job of web browsing or HD streaming. Give both machines the same SSD and enough memory, I'd dare say most people wont tell the difference.

          "oh.. my webpage loaded up 0.5 seconds slower".. Wow.. Lovely logic there.

        • Namesareapain on 22/07/2014 - 19:40

          @bchliu:
          I have a pretty recent tablet and it is awfully slow doing a lot of things, do not take processing power for granted.

        • goobar on 23/07/2014 - 09:57
          +1

          @bchliu: Yes modern phones and tablets can do these things without much issue…because they are more powerful than this NUC! These Baytrail "Celerons" are actually Atom CPUs. The Haswell celerons, like the 2955U in this chromebox, are significantly better (also use more power 15W vs 7.5W, but that's not important for a device connected to the wall).

          And I don't expect the Intel NUC to load webpages 0.5s slower, because if it did I would take it back for a refund because it is utterly not acceptable to be that slow.

      • tintsurfer on 22/07/2014 - 14:41

        i have plex on my chromebox and its working fine

    • cheapbloke on 22/07/2014 - 13:58

      actually, you can browse a NAS on the network using FTP.

      • Marky66 on 22/07/2014 - 14:22

        I've entered the IP address of my NAS but haven't bothered tinkering further as my NAS software from Thecus is horrible.
        I was hoping for a simple app to view my LAN ? any out there for Chrome OS

  • AMLagonda on 22/07/2014 - 14:00

    Er I was looking at this just last night, Is it a bargain?

  • AMLagonda on 22/07/2014 - 14:06

    No shipping to Aus.. wtf I was just there last night and couldnt get it shipped lol

    Still its $201au shipped :)

  • Jakal on 22/07/2014 - 23:37
    +2

    Damn, I just picked up one of these locally last week for $277. I flashed in a bios replacement and now it works perfectly with SteamOS in the lounge room, streaming steam games from my PC. All the hardware is supported and it can accelerate decoding 1080p signals.

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