The Asus Eee Box might look tiny, but it’s causing quite a stir. It’s taken the guts of a PC and shrunk them, along with the price tag. Now there’s a new version out in the US, with the same processor, but vastly improved HD graphics.

The new Eee Box B204 and B206 pack the 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3400 graphics cards. That’s a bit of a mouthful, so all you need to know is it’ll handle HD video with ease. There’s also a roomier hard drive inside too, at 160GB.

Other improvements include N-standard Wi-Fi, and a HDMI socket, making this a contender for the title of ultimate home-made media centre PC.

The two boxes share the same basic spec, although the B204 adds Bluetooth and, strangely, a built-in battery to act as a backup in case of power supply failure… of course, it won’t provide power to your monitor or TV, which will switch off if there’s a power cut, but we guess it means the Eee Box will continue recording TV shows, or performing other media center-style tasks.

But that’s not the only Eee-shapped news nugget coming out of Asus today. According to Digitimes, the firm has plans for an even lower priced Eee Box. It’s reportedly aiming for the £160 mark, with a machine packing 120GB of storage space, but a downscaled Intel Celeron processor.

Rumour has it the cut-price model will be out next year, but with HD goodies stuffed inside its newest models, why would you wait?

TBC | £TBC | Asus (via DigiTimes, Engadget)