Asus Eee Top ET1602 review

The Eee Top is the latest addition to Asus's Eee range. The first desktop model was the excellent Eee Box B202, but this is the first Eee desktop with a built-in monitor - and it's a touch screen as well.

Though you can use your fingers, a stylus, which tucks away in the keyboard when not needed, is also provided. The Eee Top comes with Windows XP Home installed, with a tabbed interface running along the top of the display. This interface looks similar to the tabbed Linux operating system that is included with some Eee netbooks.

The Eee interface is divided into four tabs, which contain a decent range of tools and applications. The first, Communication, includes Skype for VoIP phone calls, as well as an email client and direct links to popular websites such as Facebook and the BBC. The Fun tab contains Media Center-style playback software, as well as a couple of rudimentary games. The Work tab launches the various office applications in Sun's StarSuite, including a word processor, spreadsheet tool and database program. There's also a calculator and PDF reader. The Tools tab includes direct links to popular applications such as Opera and Internet Explorer, as well as system options and a link to XP's Control Panel.

The 15.6in touch screen has a native resolution of 1,366x768 pixels, which is a little higher than that of most 15.4in notebook displays. It's bright, clear and sharp, and the included stylus offers a reasonable level of precision. Most of the icons in the tabbed interface are reasonably large, so navigating them is quick and error-free.

While using the touch screen to play music or perform basic tasks is easy, you'll have to revert to the supplied mouse and keyboard to work on office documents or surf the web - tasks for which the touch screen isn't very suitable.

The Eee Top uses the popular 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 and has 1GB of RAM, the same specification as most netbooks. This makes it very power-efficient, drawing only 36W when active. It can handle basic programs, such as office documents, although it struggles with more demanding tasks, and wasn't able to run any of our usual benchmarks.

The 160GB hard disk provides sufficient storage, although disappointingly, there's no optical drive, so you won't be able to watch DVDs without an external drive.

The white case has several ports: four USB, Gigabit Ethernet and audio line-in and line-out. The adjustable stand lets you set the angle at which the Eee Top sits, which is handy when using the touch screen. Draft-N wireless is built-in for fast WiFi connections. The included speakers are tinny and not particularly loud.

It's worth bearing in mind that the similarly specified Eee Box B202 can attach to the rear of many LCD monitors, forming an all-in-one PC. If you already have a compatible monitor, then this would be a far cheaper option for office applications and browsing the internet, where the Eee Top's touch screen is of little use. You could also buy a cheap PC for the same price as the Eee Top.

Asus's Eee Top is a compact and attractive-looking PC, and would be a good choice for any living room. It's cheaper than other touch-screen PCs we've seen, such as HP's TouchSmart IQ500.uk. However, we're not convinced that touch-screen interfaces are worth the extra cost, and though we have a soft spot for the Eee Top, most users will be better served by the Eee Box.

Author: Mike Jennings