Final thoughts and rating
As much as we've tried to enjoy ASUS' Eee Top, we found its shortcomings to be disconcerting. At a cost of £400, its typically limited performance leaves a lot to be desired, and the lure of its shiny exterior and touchscreen niceties soon begins to fade.
Although appreciative of the netbook concept, it's currently suffering from one too many hindrances. ASUS' Eee Top offers a decent-enough touchscreen display, but it sadly isn't accompanied by software that could best leverage touch-functionality.
Beyond that, there's very little to make the Eee Top stand out from the crowd, and here's where nettops live on a fine line. To convince the computer-literate crowd it might take a few costly upgrades before we're truly persuaded. We'd like to see nettops with 20in touchscreens, integrated TV tuners, slot-loading optical drives and upgraded hardware such as Intel's dual-core Atom 330 processor and NVIDIA's ION chipset. That, though, is likely to raise prices and it'll leave little differentiation between nettops and existing all-in-one PCs such as Hewlett Packard's TouchSmart series.
Looking at it another way, the ASUS Eee Top could be the Nintendo Wii of computers. With a cute design and an appealing control system, it could attract a whole new audience to the world of computers. We wouldn't go out and buy one ourselves, but it might just be on 2009's Christmas list as a gift for mom and dad.
Nettops, then, aren't a one-size-fits-all system and to further complicate matters, we'll put another spanner in the works. In an effort to overcome the Eee Top's out-the-box software shortcomings, we later loaded the system with a touch-friendly operating system - Windows 7 beta - and it transforms the machine into one that's suddenly more intuitive and able to better make use of its touchscreen hardware. That, though, is an article for another day.
The good
One of the cheapest touchscreen all-in-one computers you're likely to find
Fun-looking and good for getting technophobics to try using a computer
Might, just might, pave the way for a netbook boom in 2009
The not so good
Expensive compared to traditional desktop PCs
Lacklustre performance is likely to frustrate many users
Let down by software that's unable to showcase what touchscreens can do
HEXUS Rating
HEXUS.net scores products out of 100%, taking into account technology, implementation, stability, performance, value, customer care and desirability. A score for an average-rated product is a meaningful ‘50%’, and not ‘90%’, which is common practice for a great many other publications.
We consider any product score above '50%' as a safe buy. The higher the score, the higher the recommendation from HEXUS to buy. Simple, straightforward buying advice.
ASUS Eee Top ET1602
HEXUS Awards
Despite the Eee Top ET1602's shortcoming, we firmly believe it'll pave the way for many more touchscreen all-in-one nettops to come. Having ignited the netbook market with its Eee PC, ASUS' Eee Top could - and indeed should - act as a catalyst for a promising nettop market.
ASUS Eee Top ET1602
HEXUS Where2Buy
The ASUS Eee Top ET1602 can be purchased from Scan.co.uk* at a cost of £420.90 or Ebuyer.com at a cost of £399.99.
*As always, UK-based HEXUS.community discussion forum members will benefit from the SCAN2HEXUS Free Shipping initiative, which will save you a further few pounds plus also top-notch, priority customer service and technical support backed up by the SCANcare@HEXUS forum.
HEXUS Right2Reply
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