Review: Asus Eee Top ET1602 PC

Asus has extended the reach of its cheap and cheerful Eee range onto the desktop with the launch of the Eee Top, an all-in-one touchscreen PC built on the same principles as its netbook range.

The Eee Top is best suited as a kitchen top PC and would be quite at home in a kid's room or for use by a student. Essentially the device is designed to fit in anywhere space is at a premium and the requirements are relatively basic.

While it could be used as a work PC for basic computing tasks either in the office or at home, the touchscreen would not add huge value for business use, the interface would have to be reset to a more standard Windows configuration and the keyboard is not well suited to long typing sessions.

The all-in-one unit includes an Intel Atom 1.6GHz dual-core processor, 1Gb of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and Intel 945 Express onboard graphics chipset, which shares up to 128Mb of system memory.

With these specifications it certainly isn't going to handle the latest games, but it will comfortably manage internet browsing, email, office applications, playing music and instant messaging all at the same time. It will also handle watching streaming or downloaded videos quite comfortably as long as nothing much else is running.

Sticking with the very minimalist feel, the Eee Top has only a handful of buttons and ports. The front is dominated by the 15.6in 16:10 touch screen, which runs at a default resolution of 1366 x 768, a good size for easily displaying most web pages and giving plenty of space for working on emails or other documents. Although the graphics card can support dual monitors there is no port available to connect a second screen or TV.

Above the screen is a 1.3-megapixel webcam and a small microphone, while below are the volume and brightness controls, power and LCD toggle buttons, and a pair of stereo speakers.

There are three sound ports at the back, which can act as either a headphone, line-out and microphone connectors, or as front, rear and centre/bass speaker connectors when using a 5.1 surround sound system. There is no option for a digital speaker set-up despite the fact that sound card supports the feature.

On the back is a carry handle and sprung stand, a Gigabit Ethernet port, power socket and four USB ports, with one offset from the other designed for a USB TV tuner or something similar that should not share a hub with other devices. On the left-hand side are another two USB ports and a multi-function memory card slot for plugging in MMC, SD and MS/PRO memory sticks.

Running Windows XP Home edition, the interface has been optimised for touchscreen input with the default settings configured with large icons and fonts. There is also an overlay dubbed Easy Mode, which provides a large, simple menu system to access the most common applications, and a few custom programs such as Eee Memo to leave Post-it-style notes on the screen, and Eee Cinema, a suite from CyberLink to access media such as video, movies, music and pictures.

In general the unit is nice and responsive making it easy to use the touch screen to navigate around. However, there is no simple way of customising the Easy Mode program to add new applications or move icons around. There are some discussions on forums about various workarounds for this, but it is a fairly complicated process, which more or less defeats the object of the Easy Mode.

The Eee Top comes preinstalled with some open-source applications, including Opera for internet browsing and Sun's StarSuite for productivity applications such as word processing and spreadsheets. The box also includes a power adaptor, a mouse and a slim keyboard that docks a stylus in the side for more precise touchscreen use.

The biggest drawback is that the Eee Top can't seem to figure out what it wants to be. It's very much a basic workhorse, but it lacks any defining features that make it stand out and, with a recommended retail price of around £450, it really should have a strong idea of where it's aiming. The prime example of this is the touchscreen which, although a neat feature, doesn't serve any particular function.

If it included a TV tuner or a DVD drive, or ran Windows Media Centre with a remote, it could work as a media centre PC. These features could be added as extras but would increase the cost further and reduce the portability and compactness of the set-up. Similarly, it may appeal to a student, but for the same amount of money they could get a laptop with a similar spec plus a DVD drive, albeit without the touchscreen.

For those interested in the Eee Top but looking for a bit more graphics power, Asus has another version available, the ET1603, which offers a discrete ATI Mobility Radeon HD3450 graphics card and an embedded battery. This should help boost portability and multimedia support.

Although the Eee Top's RRP is £449, looking around the web it can be picked up for under £430. This is still quite expensive but, should the price drop below £400, it could become an attractive proposition for those who need a basic PC somewhere around the house.

Looking at the design, the Eee Top seems best suited as a kitchen top or general home centre PC, acting as a central console where family members can leave notes, check email or just do some basic web surfing.