Asus EeeBox EB1501 Nettop Unveiled [EB1501 Ion Nettop Windows 7 Media Center PC with Built-in Optical Drive]

Asus are acting to cement their presence in the nettop market which the unveiling of their new EeeBox nettop, the Asus EeeBox EB1501, which, apart from coming with integrated optical drive, boasts Nvidia’s ION chipset allowing for 1080p HD output – meaning that it’ll happily serve as a pretty competent media center PC.

The Asus EeeBox EB1501 Nettop comes with an Intel Atom 330 dual core processor under the hood along with up to a pretty respectable 4GB DDR2-800 RAM, a 250GB SATA HDD (not the more usual 160GB HDD) and, of course, in being ION based you can also count on a Full HD capable GeForce 9400M GPU allowing for 1080p video output either to a separate monitor or, courtesy of the EeeBox EB1501’s inbuilt HDMI port, to a HDTV.

Other notable highlights include the aforementioned integrated optical drive which takes the form of a Super Multi DVD-RW whilst along with 10/100/1000 LAN there’s also 802.11b/g/n WLAN (nice to see Draft N offered – again, not something all netttops can attest to offering. There’s also the somewhat obligatory (and decidedly handy) card reader, a total of six USB ports (again, impressive) as well as D-Sub, eSATA, S/PDIF and standard audio out ports.

All in all, certainly on paper, the Asus EeeBox EB1501 Nettop offers up an impressive array of features and, as said previously, if you’re looking for a compact media center PC that offers aesthetics that would positively grace any front room few would have any hesitation in agreeing that this device is certainly up to the job whilst also agreeing that Asus have really given its competitors in the increasingly lucrative market something to think about here.

The Asus EeeBox EB1501 Nettop is purportedly set to release from October 22^nd, allowing it to come bundled with the new Windows 7 OS, and though there’s no official word concerning pricing at this juncture we expect it to drop at around the €400 (circa £367/$581) price point.