Asus Ships Quick-Booting Eee Desktop

Following up on the success of the Asus Eee and the momentum from yesterday’s announcement of the Eee Stick controller, Asus on Friday finally started shipping its Eee Box, the desktop equivalent of the Eee notebook.

The svelte book-sized case houses a fully functionally Windows XP computer, but also has a number of other tricks up its sleeve. For instance, the latest wireless 802.11n networking standard is built in, and from a turned off state the entire computer can supposedly be turned on and ready to surf in seven seconds, thanks to what Asus calls “Express Gate” technology.

Hardware specs include Intel’s latest Atom N270 processor running at 1.6Ghz, 1GB of RAM, and 80GB of storage. Thanks to the relative lean setup, Asus also claims uses approximately 90 percent less electricity than a full-sized desktop.

The machine is available immediately in both black and white from online retailers, including Amazon, for $350.