Will the Asus Eee Box sell?

Asus introduced us to the world of Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) with its Asus Eee laptop. Now they're doing it again but this time it's with portable desktops. (Mac Mini's been around but well... it's Mac)

Looks like Nintendo Wii huh?

Introducing the Asus EEE Box. This stylish portable desktop has the following specs (from Gizmodo):

• Processor: Intel Atom N270 (1.6 GHz, FSB 533)
• Memory: DDRII 512 MB / 1 GB / 2 GB
  
• Storage: 80 GB / 120 GB / 160 GB / 250 GB
  
• Chipset: 945GSE + ICH7M
  
• VGA: On-board Intel GMA 950, 1600 x 1200 maximum resolution
  
• Networking: 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN, 802.11n WLAN, Bluetooth optional
  SD/MMC/MS slot: SD, SDHC, Mini SD, (Micro SD through adapter) ; MMC, MMC plus, MMC4.x, RS MMC, RSMMC4.x (MMC mobile through adapter);MS,MS PRO
  
• Audio: Azalia ALC888 Audio Chip

Front Ports:

• USB x 2
• Card Reader x 1
• Headphone-out jack (WO/SPDIF) x 1
• MIC x 1

Rear Ports:

• USB 2.0 x 2
• Gigabit LAN x 1
• DVI out x 1
• Line-Out (L/R) with S/PDIF x 1
  
• WiFi antenna

US Configurations and MSRP:

• $269 1GB memory + 80GB HDD Linux edition
• $299 1GB memory + 80GB HDD XP edition
• $299 2GB memory + 160GB HDD Linux edition

If you're looking for an optical drive in there, well there's none. But there are 4 USB ports for your external DVD writer or whatever. Being WiFi ready is really nice and the 160GB disk space really helps.

Side by side with Mac Mini

But why would you want to buy the Eee Box anyway? Well, it doesn't try to compete with the conventional desktops. If you wanna spend Php13k on a PC, you can build something more powerful than the Eee Box.

The Eee Box is for those who are style or space-conscious who don't use PC's to play games or do fancy stuffs like maybe your parents. It would be a nice upgrade from those hulking ATX casings that they are used to.

With it's low power-consuming Atom processor, it could be a nice PC solely for downloading things. Being portable as well, you can easily connect it to your LCD TV to watch movies that are stored in it. Of course, it could be a nice out-of-the-box Linux PC that you could play around with.

Let's just wait and see how big a splash it would make when it is released this July. I would guess that it would have decent sales but really won't sell like pancakes.