Once upon a time, Dell's Zino HD promised
desktop parts in a tiny box and didn't quite deliver the goods, but it was still cute and powerful enough a mini-desktop to earn a spot on our
holiday gift guide. This time round, it looks like Dell might actually fulfill that original pledge, as support documents leaked at the company's website show the box sporting an AMD RS880M chipset capable of socketing Phenom II quad-core processors. While it only comes with onboard Radeon HD 4250 graphics by default, a Mobility Radeon 5450 GPU is listed as a potential option at launch, and the box can now hold up to 8GB of 1066MHz DDR3 memory alongside 802.11n WiFi and Blu-ray drive options. On the front and back of the small box, you'll find practically exactly the same ports, but there is a new optical S/PDIF socket capable of piping 7.1 surround sound. While there's no guarantee all these options are slated for a stateside launch, we imagine Dell will either deliver or keep a tighter lid on
these sorts of docs.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted July 31st 2010 2:55PM
Definitely better value than the Mac Mini.
@magadget
Not trying to defend the mini, but how would you know if it has a better value? It doesn't have a price
@mikemanblah It's not sold by Apple.
What is this? They still haven't released the Dell Streak.... yeah, I'm bitter.
@magadget You would know this because you read the article and saw that the price is way less then the mac min oh wait..
@MoonWalkerCTE
Hard to imagine that this wouldn't be better value for the money than mac mini.
Or more correctly hard to imagine anything that would be worse value for the money than mac mini.
@newone yeah it doesn't have a C2D thats so 4 years ago....
@bcd LOL!
@bcd Sad but true! xD
@mikemanblah
The mac mini is supposed to be living-room friendly but sports no blu-ray drive as well as some of the most outdated hardware ever. So yeah, it's a better deal without even knowing the sticker price.
I though the minuscule studio thing and the Zino line we great deals but after reading about their absolute pathetic HD performance I guess this will be a great boost to their appeal.
@magadget
It's twice as thick.. how the hell is it better?
@Arkv2 Know much about computers?
The reason why the mini is a good computer and why Apple selected those parts is because of noise and power usage. Unless Dell is using a new AMD processor family this machine will consume 2-4 times the amount of power that the mini consumes.
Also Zino's are know for running hot and going down due to heat related issues.
Take that Mac Mini!
@Giac
Yeah, but this thing is as tall as two Mac Minis. I don't have room under my TV for this, but if the Mac had a FRIGGIN' BLU-RAY OPTION FOR CRYING OUT LOUD it would already be in my living room. Seriously, Apple, WTF?
@Smart People Play Tuba
it's funny that the mac mini is priced like it has blu-ray. ohhh burn.
@Smart People Play Tuba Apple was in the HDDVD camp, and once Apple makes a decision, that's final, no going back.
@Shalabi -- how wrong can you be? They've been on the Blu Ray board of directors since 2006...
@Smart People Play Tuba
It may be taller than a Mac Mini, but so is my glass coaster. The real question is if you care how it works, or if it REALLY matters that its one inch instead of two inches or whatever tall.
Its like comparing a Chihuahua, Pomeranian, and Japanese Chin, they're all damn small no matter how you slice it.
@Smart People Play Tuba
> Yeah, but this thing is as tall as two Mac Minis. I don't have room under my TV for this
Tell us some more tall tales.
@jedi "tall tales"
*rimshot*
@Smart People Play Tuba
wake up, its 2010. BluRay is a joke.
Ever heard of Digital Distribution?
@Wesscoast
Ever heard of 40GBs of data? Digital distribution fails at 1080P high bitrate compared to just grabbing a movie for $1.50 at the gasstation redbox or netflix or whatever floats your boat.
@Wesscoast
When I buy a Blu-ray, I own it. And I *know* I own it. It's mine.
A lot of digital distribution models rely on pinging a server to make sure the copy is legit, and if the company decided not to support that service any longer, you're hosed. It's happened before.
Besides, a lot of the content my family wants isn't available online, so BD is a must.
@jedi
Not that you care, but my house has a built-in TV "cabinet" of sorts over the gas log, so when we bought an HDTV, we bought the biggest one that would fit (46"). So that leaves just enough space under the TV for a horizontal Wii or a Mac Mini. But not this.
Also, why so angry? Anger leads to the Dark Side. A jedi should know better.
Whats the price?
@kickerbockeragua
You can configure them here:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspiron-zino-hd?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19
Start at $249
@deedubbadoo dude thats the old one durrr
@tu eres estupido
My bad, wasn't paying attention.
@deedubbadoo
no, that's helpful, thanks. apple should match the old specs in a year or two.
I could be very wrong...but I thought S/PDIF itself was limited to 5.1 audio. Thought I read that on engadget HD a while ago... Meh, I could be wrong..
Launching it with a mobile GPU isn't exactly "desktop parts in a tiny box" though.
@bcd
The 4250 is also used in desktops, its the integrated graphics card that came with my Mother Board. And the 5450 is a desktop graphics card, albeit a less powerful one.
@doyleman7 Uh. The word mobility infront of 5450 kinda gives you a hint that it's a mobile card.
@doyleman7 Nah pretty sure the Mobility 5450 is a mobile card, I've got it on my laptop.
@bcd Its similar to most all-in-ones like the Touchsmart or iMac.
Mostly desktop parts (this will take a 3TB 3.5" harddrive for example), but a frugal mobile GPU so they don't have to put a big heatsink and power-supply in there.
Better value doesn't mean better proformance.
It's still a freaking machine. Nothing more an nothing less.
@pspitts Very true, but unless you drive a Veyron, you probably care at some level about the performance versus price ratio.
@pspitts
That's the point. It's still a computer, just a significantly less expensive computer. For someone who mostly uses their computer for web browsing and Office, this is exactly what they would need.
Definitely like this new trend of mini PCs. Should give me some nice options for a pre built CarPC in the future.
With i7-800 series Intel CPUs on Mini-ITX boards, I find it kind of surprising that this took so long to develop.
This is nice for an htpc. The graphics card is more than adequate to play any 1080p content as long as you install core avc.
I build computers and would personally go with a core i3 in a mini itx form factor. This thing is nice though.
@needmoregigs I don't think you're right. CoreAVC doesn't have support for DxVA which is all ATI cards can use for hardware accelerated graphics. You'd need to install a codec like MPC-HC with DxVA capabilities.
@mrjspeed
I know what you are getting at, but DXVA is still not optimal when you are running Direct Vobsub and hali media splitter. Hardware acceleration is still broken when forced subs are muxed in with the video. Of course I'm just looking at the worst case scenario.
Even with software decoding, the processor should not get past 60% cpu usage. I had a similar build using a 785g chipset and an athlon II x2 250 regor. I used both DXVA and Core AVC to test the system, not at the same time of course.
@needmoregigs
I have the Zino 400 w/ the onboard 3200 and x2 6850e processor. Since the ATI 10.4 drivers, I've had 0 issues playing 1080p content and 1080p HDTV. I haven't extensively tested this but I'm sure the 410 will have less issues
I laugh at AMD's chips. Their hexacore ship got beaten by a Core i5 chip which is a dual core, but does have hyper-threading. Which is embarrassing. I wonder if the Mac Mini beats the quad core. After all quad cores do make a lot of heat. They might need a lower clocked quad core processor for it.
@weinerschnitzelboy
Link?
@weinerschnitzelboy You don't buy a 6 core chip if you only use one or two cores. Sure the Core i5 may give similar performance for programs that don't use multiple threads but the AMD Hex core isn't on the same chart when using a program that can use the 6 cores. It is like saying a gun is better then an axe for chopping wood because it shoots faster.
@weinerschnitzelboy
I don't know what stats you're thinking of! Ok, so the hexcore AMD Phenom x6 1090T does lose out on a few (but definitely not all) gaming benchmarks to the top-of-the line intel dual core i5, the core-i5 670. In any review I've seen, e.g.:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3674/amds-sixcore-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-1055t-reviewed/1
any application that makes use of all of the threads the intel chip (which is not a lot cheaper than the AMD) usually gets only 50% of the performance of the hex-core.
@weinerschnitzelboy
Pretty sure these all ship with PowerDVD. Its been able to play everything I've thrown at it, and it uses GPU acceleration (pretty obvious too, as the CPU isn't under much load at all on even high bitrate 1080P footage which should stress a little Neo).
@Kazmo
Agreed, except with your analogy.
If I learned anything from Crysis, its that its always cooler to chop down trees with a gun.