At an event in Mumbai, Asus launched its EEE Box product -- their greenest and cost-effective desktop PC. In August, AsusTek's global CEO Jerry Shen had mentioned about the then-planned launch. Featuring an Intel 1.6GHz Atom N270 processor, an Intel chipset, 1GB of DD2 RAM and an 80 GB HDD, the Eee Box will run Windows XP Home edition. Surprisingly no Linux flavor is being offered with the EEE products after the Eee PC 1000H launched earlier in July this year. The EEE Box is priced headless at Rs. 16,490 -- it doesn't bundle a monitor, a keyboard or a mouse at that price.

Asus claims that the Eee Box consumes 90 per cent less power than a regular rig and has sound emission level of up to 26 decibel. That's slightly louder than a whisper, for those curious [Decibel scale of common sounds]. For faster Internet connectivity, Asus's Express Gate feature claims to take the EEE Box online in just seven seconds. The Eee Box supports the 802.11n WiFi standard.

However, the Eee Box is not passively cooled.

Hopefully these new Eee Boxes don't carry a virus like those recently sold in Japan. Asus took the issue seriously and found a Chinese OEM at fault. That undisclosed Chinese OEM was responsible for manufacturing EEE Boxes for Japanese Market. Post that, Asus announced transfer of future Eee Box manufacturing to Foxconn, Pegatron and other second-tier OEM providers.