Yesterday, Dell officially announced availability of the Dell Inspiron Zino HD.
The Inspiron Zino HD is a small PC that packs quite a punch in an 8” by 8” square. Hip to be square, right? Ok – enough Huey Lewis, let’s talk about what this PC comes (and can be configured) with:
- It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit or Windows 7 Professional 64-bit*.
- You can customize the PC with 7 solid colors.
- You can customize the PC with 3 designs.
- The Inspiron Zino HD uses AMD’s Athlon processor (single or dual core).
- The base configuration is 3GB of RAM, but can be configured with 4, 6, and 8GB of RAM with 8GB being the max.
- Storage shouldn’t be a problem with your choice of 500GB, 640GB, 750GB, or 1TB 7200rpm SATA hard drives.
- You can choose either a DVD +/- RW drive or Blu-ray drive.
- For graphics, you can choose either an integrated ATI Radeon HD3200 or discrete ATI Radeon HD 4330 with 512MB of dedicated memory.
- It has HDMI and VGA ports.
- A 4-in-1 media card reader and integrated gigabit Ethernet are both standard.
- It has integrated 2.1 High Definition audio with the choice of going with a Sound Blaster X-Fi High Definition audio from Creative.
- For your wireless needs, you can choose either a Dell 1397 802.11 b/g wireless card or Dell 1520 802.11 b/g/n wireless card.
This little PC starts at just $229 and can be customized to support a variety of configurations depending on your needs.
Matter a fact, Dell’s Lionel Menchaca talks about a perfect use for the Inspiron Zino HD – a Windows Media Center “hub” with Windows 7. You can connect this PC up to your HDTV via HDMI and play HD Blu-ray movies. You can buy a USB TV tuner to watch and record live TV in Windows Media Center and also stream video content via Internet TV and Netflix.
For a powerful Windows Media Center setup with Windows 7, it is recommended when ordering your Inspiron Zino HD you choose the discrete graphics option (the ATI Radeon HD 4330) for the best experience. With with the storage options you get with the Inspiron Zino HD, you can literally make this PC the centralized “hub” on your network for all your digital media. And of course HomeGroup in Windows 7 makes it easier than ever to share that content with the rest of your PCs on your network too.
In the coming months I’m hoping to pick one of these up and deploy it in my home as my own Windows Media Center hub.
* Base model comes with Windows Vista Home Basic SP1 32-bit.
Photos credit: Dell. See the full set of Inspiron Zino HD photos from Dell’s official Flickr page.