I was just up the road in a 3C store in HongShulin where I saw the ‘fabled’ Asus Eee Box pictured below. It really got me thinking about my music plans. We have an older Yamaha audio system, with a line-in socket. With several GBs of MP3’s purchased legally from EMUSIC and several hundred CDs, Tapes and LPs, I’m busy thinking it’s about time to put the entire collection on MP3, attach the system to the hi-fi and/or the TV and enjoy a CD-less experience.
There are some great advantages with this kind of music device: it’s very quite (about 26dB), very low power (2.5 watts of power), and affordable as a solution. It comes complete with Windows XP at a price that would crack your jaw on the pavement – US$300 or less, and it’s got wireless.
I’m so tempted, but it would take quite a while to rip all those CDs on a device with no CD-rom, so I guess I can get ripping now and buy a large USB-disk to store everything on. At least then setting up the device will be a simple thing. Now I wonder if my wife would like that!
(actually, I’m already planning to replace one or two of the PCs at school with this system… it would be much quieter and much less expensive as a server – I could just leave it on all day).
Mmm. Tempted. Sorely. What do you think?
ASUS Eee Box PC (1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, XP Home) Pure Black