Dell's Inspiron Zino HD

While it may be a few years late in the mini-PC market, and closely resembling a familiar friend, Dell's Inspiron Zino HD promises to deliver snappy performance for desktop PC lovers on a dime. Perhaps it was just our media addiction speaking, but the first thing that immediately came to mind was, "Perfect HTPC, anyone?"

And then our hopes dropped to the floor after hearing that a TV tuner won't be available at launch. Yep. Sadface. So those of you looking for that perfect HTPC may have to look elsewhere for now.

Still, with its tiny dimensions (7.75- x 7.75- x 3.5-inches) and fairly low price tag ($229), the Zino HD sounds like it'll still be just enough to cater to those looking to downsize their desktop footprint. The base configuration starts at 1.6GHz dual-core AMD Athlon Neo X2 2650e CPU, 2GB (upgradable to 8GB), up to 1TB of HDD space, an optional Blu-ray drive, an integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 GPU and ~~your usual WiFi~~ uh... there's no WiFi with the base config (but it's upgradable to wireless b/g). Other caveats include a 4-in1 card reader, 4 USB 2.0 sockets, and eSATA ports.

More info about the Dell Inspiron Zino HD can be found here at their product page.

[Via Engadget]

Comments (7)

I'm still thinking that this is going to be a solid HTPC. Since I am "sans-cable" all my media is in the cloud anyway, or on my harddrive. I think this is a great option if you don't need cable television. If only it had an S-Video port, seeing as I havn't my TV doesn't have an HDMI port.

posted by ominoustoad on November 13th 2009 at 3:05pm
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I agree... don't really care about the TV tuner. All I need is bluray, big hard drive for video storage, and wireless for streaming netflix. Looks like this thing can get the job done!

The hard drive in this is 3.5", so you can get a bigger drive from Newegg for relatively cheap (much cheaper than Dell wants for their upgrade).

Counting my pennies...

posted by reubenrock on November 13th 2009 at 4:07pm
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It is a total rip off of Mac Mini. So sad that Dell can't do any decent design.

posted by JamesG on November 14th 2009 at 9:12am
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But it's way cheaper! yay!

posted by ekoshyun on November 14th 2009 at 11:02am
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@JamesG

I know! Totally! Apple also invented rectangular touchscreen phones. I can't believe how many people are ripping them off now!

posted by marm0lade on November 15th 2009 at 9:54am
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the picture seems to only have 4 USB ports

posted by beesknees on November 17th 2009 at 2:26pm
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comment retracted....two on the front. i looked on their website and it seemed they only offered two so i got confused=)

posted by beesknees on November 17th 2009 at 2:26pm
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