November 12th, 2009
Dell Inspiron Zino HD aims for living room, Mac mini; starts $229
Dell on Thursday officially announced its new Inspiron Zino HD mini desktop PC, an inexpensive Windows-based machine that targets the living room and the Mac mini.
Much more than the Mac mini — which is Apple’s cheapest computer in its lineup — the Inspiron Zino HD is quite affordable, at $229.
The good is that the Zino HD supports Blu-ray, carries an HDMI port and offers 802.11n Wi-Fi. The questionable is its baseline ATI graphics and low-power single-core 1.6GHz AMD Athlon 2650e processor.
The Zino HD also offers a DVD burner, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, two USB 2.0 ports, VGA out, two eSATA ports, an SD card reader and wired networking — slightly more bang for the buck than the $199 Acer Inspire Revo, thanks to the DVD burner and larger storage capacity.
The other good news is that the Zino HD is upgradeable, a rarity at this price point. The processor can be upgraded to a dual-core Athlon X2 3250e, memory to 4GB, wireless connectivity to 802.11b/g/n and the aforementioned Blu-ray drive — and the price remains less than $500, at $498.
(Dell says a TV tuner option is coming, but didn’t indicate when.)
Not a bad little machine to position underneath the HDTV.
The Zino HD comes in several colors and design finishes. It’s available now to ship Nov. 26.
Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet.
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