Asus Eee Box 1501 mini PC hands-on photos

The first Asus Eee Box to run Windows 7 was shown off in a swanky Soho members' club last night. It's the dual-core Intel Atom-powered Eee Box 1501, and we shared a seductive booth with one.

Like the older Eee Box mini PCs, there's no screen included. Instead it's got HDMI for connecting it up to an HDTV. But it's the first model to include a DVD drive, and its graphics system is now handled by Nvidia's powerful new Ion technology.

Other specs include a 1.6GHz Intel Atom 330 processor, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 250GB hard drive, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, six USB ports and a five-in-one card reader. It runs the Home Premium edition of Windows 7. For this, you'll need to hand over an acceptable £339.

1080p(roblems)

In the past, we've had trouble getting the low-power Eee Boxes to manage 1080p video playback -- something that really affected its review score, what with its intention to be your all-in-one media centre.

But at least in a demo yesterday, it was performing nicely. Our hopes that this is the first Eee Box we can truly recommend can only be fulfilled when we get one in our labs for testing. We'll have that full review for you shortly.

The 1501 launches tomorrow, 22 October, and will be available in black or white. Check our bonus hands-on photos over the page.