Dell Inspiron Zino HD Desktop Review

Let’s take you back to 2005 when Apple introduced the Mac mini, a full-fledged computer inside of a 6.5 inch square enclosure. It was very impressive at the time, but now there are many competitors on the market including the Dell Inspiron Zino HD, which we’re taking a look at today. More thoughts on the computer itself and what you might use it for after the break.

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Let’s take you back to 2005 when Apple introduced the Mac mini, a full-fledged computer inside of a 6.5 inch square enclosure. It was very impressive then, but now there are many competitors on the market including the Dell Inspiron Zino HD, which we’re taking a look at today. More thoughts on the computer itself and what you might use it for after the break.

Some small form factor PCs are underpowered, but like we saw with the Gateway SX2840 PC, the Inspiron Zino HD certainly isn’t one of them. The review unit we received came loaded with an AMD Athlon X2 3250e running at 1.5GHz, 4GB of DDR2 memory, an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics card, a 500GB hard drive, dual-layer DVD burner, and 802.11n wireless networking (a plus for a home theater PC).

On the front of the Zino HD, you’ll find two USB ports, the dual-layer DVD burner, a 4-in-1 card reader, and a headphone jack. Turn it around and on the back are two more USB ports, two eSATA ports, an Ethernet jack, audio in/out jacks and a HDMI port. One thing missing is an optical audio output port for those who want optical audio while using the VGA port. The top panel of the Zino HD pops off and can be replaced with a variety of designs including seven colors and a few interesting designer patterns.

Already this PC is a perfect fit for the living room. Throw something like XBMC, Boxee, or Hulu Desktop on it and you’ve got plenty of content available at your leisure. All it needs is a Blu-Ray drive and you’ve got yourself a pretty awesome home theater PC. Unlike the Gateway SX2840, it didn’t have a scratch of bloatware loaded on it, and we applaud Dell for eliminating it from their entire line. It does come with a trial subscription to McAfee Internet Security, but that’s where it ends.

The Zino HD performed well in our benchmarking tests, earning a score of 2787 PCMarks in our PCMark Vantage tests and in our CINEBENCH tests thanks to the discrete graphics card. While it isn’t a speed demon, it’s perfect for basic office tasks, web browsing, photo editing, and playing movies. While it isn’t as fast as other small form factor PCs on the market, nothing beats the Dell in terms of the flexibility of this particular desktop.

The Dell Inspiron Zino HD starts at $249 through Dell’s website.

Pros