Hardware Dell Zino HD Review

over priced and with limited audio options. Pity, as this could be so much more.

 

Bindi and other BT staff, what would be your final appreciation if it was the £365 model? Amuse me

 

I was thinking this would be the perfect media extender until I went to Dell and started configuring it. I was over $700 when I gave up. This is way to expensive. Let me know when Dell has a special for four to five hundred off. Until then I'm still looking for a great media extender. So far its either the Popbox or Boxee Box.

 

Ouch at the price!

Am I missing the point here? Are consumers really up for spending 1.5x - 2x more for small form factor PC when they could have something in a desktop case that can actually handle YouTube...

 

I watched them all through one night...... It was a terrible experience

 

Hahahaha! This is roughly the budget I have in mind for my next desktop, and I expect it to last at least 2 years before needing an upgrade!

 

Guys, I have a confession to make before page 7 loaded i looked away to fiddle with wmplayer, then looked back and saw the dialogue box and spent about 20 seconds wondering why it didn't close when I hit cancel.

 

Looks like this was designed over a year ago and is now just getting to market

If it used .45nm parts and a 5*** series vga card then maybe it would be worth what they are ripping err I mean selling it for now

 

Don't know for sure because they wouldn't send us one. I assume, pretty good: same CPU, 500GB hard drive is enough, HD 3200 will be a bit slower in gaming too. For half that price, I'd buy that, except I wouldn't, because the 3250e is painfully slow for me.

It's not an air pocket, I was just extremely lucky it peeled off like that haha

 

Is the standard build (no upgrades) good enough for media streaming (including HD vids) instead of a media extender box such as the A.C. Ryan Play ON!? http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2010/02/02/a-c-ryan-playon-hd-media-player/1

I'm in the market for a media player/extender and I'm not thrilled at whats currently available. I've found my laptop works great. I just hate having to hook it up everytime I want to stream media from my Windows Home Server.

 

Not sure if you have much experience with Samsung drives. They are inaudible and run extremely cool, even their 7200RPM 3.5-inch drives. I have a 1TB Samsung F2 in a Vantec NexStar3 USB/eSATA enclosure and while on for hours and after transferring hundreds of gigs of data the enclosure was cool to the touch.

 

Why? wasn't it supplied with a PSU?

 

Am I wrong for wanting my HTPC to have a DVB tuner inside? Win7 media centre is more attractive than my Panasonic's programme guide, and surely the benefit of having a disk drive is that you can record TV again...

 

I meant for the comparatives

The F2s are distinctly different from the F1s, which are notably more noisy than the other 1TB drives we have in the office and have a distinctly loud WHOOOP noise spinning up.

 

Well I might actually get one of these... Do they all run off of AM2 (except the Neo)? I'm sure if someone wanted to, they could get a waterblock for the AM2 (if it uses standard mounting points, which it looks like it does) and drop in a better processor. Any ideas as to what the max TPD would be for this board? Pretty sure you could get a 45nm 65W Phenom X4 going with no problems.. Last time I checked, you can do CPU swaps on Dells (Did a T2400 to a T7200 on a laptop for a friend, just have to clear CMOS and reset/update BIOS). Also, anyone know a good source (besides ebay) to get MXM graphics cards?

 

@kornedbeefy

i beg a diff on media players. had this player AC Ryan and it works fine on BT downloads, streaming contents from my PC in my room to my living room via wired. of cos, it handles all formats that it supports.

media players are more 'green' in terms of juice drawn from socket compared to HTPC, and much smaller on the form factor