The large towers next to monitors still hold a place of privilege among enthusiasts who enjoy assembling their own systems, but the rest of the market is being slowly invaded by much more compact desktop alternatives. Another brand-new member of that category is ASRock's Beebox, which houses one of the new low-power Intel Celeron SoCs.
The Ultra-Compact Era
Part of the rejection of classic cases began when it became viable to replace desktop computers with portable options. Performance trade-offs became progressively smaller over time, and the truth is that every user enjoys gaining space. Then came "All-in-One" systems, and finally we entered the era of ultra-compacts, inspired by developments like the Intel NUC. The main goal of small systems like the NUC is none other than efficiency. Those who need raw performance will probably ignore the format, however, a compact system is "enough" for most tasks. I also don't want to forget the noise reduction. Energy savings on the latest platforms are so important that manufacturers can apply passive cooling without major issues. That's the case with the new Beebox, a computer from ASRock, which we know better for its motherboards.
The Beebox's Hardware
The ASRock Beebox is based on an Intel Celeron N3000 from the Braswell family, a close cousin of Cherry Trail (the new Atoms we see in systems like the Surface 3 tablet), and both under the Airmont architecture, with 14-nanometer manufacturing. This Celeron has two physical cores with two processing threads (no Hyper-Threading here) running at 1.04 GHz, and a Turbo mode of 2.08 GHz. Depending on the configuration, its RAM goes up to 2 or 4 GB in DDR3 (maximum 16 GB), storage is 32 gigabytes of solid-state (mSATA), it offers a 2.5-inch bay to expand its capacity, a complete connectivity package (WiFi ac, BT 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet), and a healthy assortment of ports, including HDMI, DisplayPort, and four USB 3.0 ports, one of which is the new reversible Type-C. As we mentioned above, the ASRock Beebox uses passive cooling, thanks to the 4W TDP on the Celeron N3000.
Price and Competition
As if that weren't enough, Beebox comes with a remote control in the box, anticipating its role as a possible HTPC. ASRock announced Windows 10 as the operating system for the Beebox, but if the plan is to launch the computer during the last days of June, I think it will actually offer Windows 8.1, to then access the free upgrade. So far, the price of the Beebox is a mystery, and it's logical that ASRock is taking its time on that point. A compact computer divorced from reality is destined to gather dust on shelves, not to mention that the market already has good alternatives, like the HP Stream Mini for $180.
