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Dell’s new Zino HD mini-computers look good enough to eat. And, even more important if you are the sole geek of the the house, good enough to put in the living room.
The Zino HD wants to sit by your TV, and is a full-on entertainment PC. As ever, it’s hard to get a handle on precisely what a Dell machine will actually do, as the configuration options are almost endless. Here instead, is a list of the options.
All of the 8” x 8” boxes run on some kind of AMD Athlon Dual-Core processor and offer a choice of Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Ubuntu Linux. You can stuff in up to a terabyte of hard drive space, 8GB RAM and opt for a rewritable DVD drive or Blu-ray.
But then the entertainment begins. The HD part comes from the HDMI-out port (we told you this wanted to live by your TV), there are two eSATA connectors for hooking up yet more storage and even a memory card reader for sucking up your photos without an unsightly adapter. And along with the usual computer ports (Ethernet jack, line-out and VGA) you get a full four USB ports, two of which are at the front for easy access.
If you cheap out on everything (and choose the black one), the Zino HD will cost just $230. Maxing out the hardware and OS takes you up to $808. Somewhere in the middle of that lies a computer that is arguably better suited to the living room than the previous champion, the Mac Mini. I’ll take mine in strawberry flavor.
Product page [Dell]
Store page [Dell]
