Why is the Asus Eee Box expensive?

For the price of Php 24,900 a lot of people are asking me why the recently launched Asus Eee Box is a little expensive in the Philippines (even if Asus bundled a 16″ LCD monitor with it)?

Back in June, when I first reported that the Asus Eee Box will come out this month, I predicted a retail price of just Php12,000. A similarly spec’ed desktop PC will hover around Php13,000 in price due to additional WiFi and Bluetooth connections.

However, Asus bundled with it a small 16″ LCD monitor which retails in the market for as low as Php7,000 for AOC models and Php7,500 for Samsung models. Subtract the cost of the LCD and you end up buying the Eee Box alone for Php17,500.

What can you buy with Php17,500?

Athlon 64 LE1640 @ 2.6GHz – Php2,410
2GB DDR2 SDRAM – Php1,960
250GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 8MB -Php2,680
MSI K9N6SGM-V NVidia V-PCie/S/L/R – Php2,250
Inno3D 7300GT 512MB DDR2 128bit DVI – Php2,510
Samsung 20x DVDRW lightscribe – Php1,440
WiFi Dongle – Php900
Bluetooth Dongle – Php250
———————-
Total – Php14,400

Of course, the Asus Eee Box will have the advantage of a smaller form factor and lower power consumption. I have this idea that Asus’ Eee line of PCs and laptops want to be perceived as small and affordable. The introduction of the Asus Eee PC line showed that almost anyone can now afford to have a laptop.

The price of the Eee Box does not give that impression that anyone can now afford to have a desktop PC. It’s still cheaper to go and buy from local PC retail stores. I might be wrong about what Asus want to achieve here or it’s just that local taxes and VAT pumped the extra Php5,500 into the price.

At that price point, I doubt Asus could sell a whole lot of Eee Box. What more that you can get a whole PC set w/ monitor for under Php15,000.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

24 Comments

neonites says:

15 years ago

mag n-computing na lang kayo…
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IC DeaDPiPoL says:

15 years ago

Any self-assembly alternative to this other than buying a laptop/netbook? (in terms of low-power consumption)
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hukares says:

16 years ago

I guess we all have to pay a little more to this box since we are surely going to get it back from the sure-to-be-lowered electric bill. ;-)
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Jay says:

16 years ago

@jonathan

yeah pwede xa pang dota.

@yuga
maybe i’ll just hang around for a while and wait for that Dual Core Atom N330 1.86GhZ
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jonathan says:

16 years ago

pwede kaya dito ang counter strike at dota????
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Lucien Dominick G. Tiojanco says:

16 years ago

Sorry, with the medium sized LCD monitor the price will be around PhP 25,000…
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Lucien Dominick G. Tiojanco says:

16 years ago

I’d rather assemble my own rig… I think I can get:
– AMD Athlon LE-1640/4850e processor
– AMD 780G chipset
– ATI 3450 discrete graphics cars (for Hybrid Crossfire)
– 2GB 800 FSB RAM
– 320 GB 7200 RPM HDD
– DVD-RW w/ Lightscribe ODD
– Multi-card Reader
– Stylish micro ATX Casing
for around that price if not a little more…

‘course I’ll need genuine Windows Vista Premium to take use hybrid graphics and medium sized monitor (can’t expect much from the ATI 3200 IGP + ATI 3450 discrete graphics card, can I?) which will bump the price up to around PhP 20,000 I guess.
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Abe Olandres says:

16 years ago

@AnnaE – I usually buy from Rising Sun Computers and PC Express.
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AnnaE says:

16 years ago

Abe, where do you recommend we get the P17,500 PC? Any particular computer shop you are fond of? Ganda kasi ng prices mo. Thanks! (:
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Erin says:

16 years ago

i was hoping it would be competitive to building one for yourself using the “little falls” as base. way i figure it the 12K would be what the little falls would cost when built with the same specs. the eeebox would only have the small chassis and the wireless as its edge but i am not going to pay an extra 5k for that.

ciao!
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Jon Limjap says:

16 years ago

Then that’s it. The XP Home OEM License pushed it up. If it didn’t have that it would’ve been at PHP17,500.

Question: will we ever have THAT option?
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noemi says:

16 years ago

@Jon- the price comes with the Windows XP Home.
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BrianB says:

16 years ago

Eh, bajit cellphone di ganyan ka mahal, parang US pricing din yung retail price dito?
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jhay says:

16 years ago

Good luck to Asus on this one. I think we Pinoys are more fond of clone PCs instead of branded ones.
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Abe Olandres says:

16 years ago

@Andre, tariffs and VAT I guess.

@Jon, comes with XP Home.

@BrianB, everything gets taxed. no one is exempted from the 12% VAT.
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BrianB says:

16 years ago

Asutek sa Taiwan lang yan diba. Ba’t mas mahal pa dito kesa US and prices nila. Sabihin na natin tax, eh bakit Nokia phones mas mura ang pricing sa pinas kesa US? Wala bang tax cellphones?
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Jon Limjap says:

16 years ago

Is the 24,900 Eee box the linux rig? 5,500 sounds awfully like the OEM price of Windows XP.
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Andre says:

16 years ago

The eeePCs came out over here a lot more expensive than their Taiwan or HK counterparts, probably same with the Eee Box.
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