Asus unwraps media centre mini PC

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

9th April 2008 09:44 GMT

No, it's not the desktop version of the Eee PC. Instead, Asus' Essentio CS5110 mini PC is a multimedia powerhouse in a stylish small form-factor design. According to Asus, at any rate...

The 290 x 200 x 80mm CS5110 is based around Intel's G35 chipset and will be offered with a range of processors, from Celerons up to Core 2 Duos. It takes up to 4GB of 800MHz DDR 2 memory and 250GB to 1TB of 3Gb/s SATA storage.

On the optical side: a choice of slot-loading Blu-ray drive with multi-format DVD burning, or a plain old DVD writer.

Asus' Essentio CS5110: compact media centre, anyone?

Asus stressed the CS5110's focus on graphics: the unit contains an Nvidia GeForce 8600M mobile GPU with 256MB of video memory. The chip's mounted on an MXM card, so it can be whipped out and replaced in the future. The GPU feeds a VGA port but most users will plug a TV in using the PC's HDMI connector. There's a HDMI-DVI adaptor in the box for folk with regular monitors. The box has 7.1 sound output portage too.

Connectivity comes courtesy of a Gigabit Ethernet port and 802.11n Wi-Fi for networking; four USB ports, one Firewire and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR for hooking up peripherals.

The whole shebang runs Windows Vista Home Premium, and should be available soon. Asus wasn't forthcoming with the pricing plan, however.