Dell Inspiron Zino HD review

"but note that price"

I already have done.

I'd rather get a larger but more powerful machine. End of story.

By Lacrobat on 22 Jan 2010

klupus

Get a Mac Mini. Style, far more power and the premier personal OS. No brainer really.

By kaneclem on 22 Jan 2010

klupus

Get a Mac Mini. Style, far more power and the premier personal OS. No brainer really.

By kaneclem on 22 Jan 2010

It looks blooming ugly, and that lid is the worst thing about it. Style???!! Yeah right!

I agree with klupus, get a Mac Mini.

By treadmill on 22 Jan 2010

Look at the mactards

Gleefully leaping on a negative review of a PC product. That cover is just one of many that the Zino has to offer. A Mac mini at this price will offer less RAM, a smaller hard drive, and weaker graphics. It has as more powerful processor but its a mobile processor so its not that great.

I don't know how they managed to price this at over £500 because if you look at Dell's site the prices start at below £300 and there is an option to add Blu Ray. Can't do that on a Mac Mini. I saw this as a home theatre PC, and it fits that niche nicely.

Apple's problem is that they offer little in the way of vaariety. A Mac Mini would be wasted as a home theatre, and not as functional as a PC since it doesn't accelerate video on the graphics card. Even low budget PC onboard graphics can do that.

By windywoo on 23 Jan 2010

OK now I see

The TB drive, the 4GB of RAM and the discrete graphics card take the price up to over £500, but what would the price of a Mac Mini be if you specced these options on Apple's site? Don't even think about suggesting that you add them yourself. The same could be done with this machine, and in any case, the whole point of a Mac is that its supposed to appeal to the technically illiterate. It just "works".

By windywoo on 23 Jan 2010

Usless as a mini

Both underpowered, upgrade path non-existent and a single parts failure leaves you with a lump of components.

By Cybersquatter on 23 Jan 2010

Klupus

windywoo

The Mini a waste as a home theatre! Really.

And not as functional as a PC. So list the things that the reviewed machine does that the Mini doesn't do better.

So the Mac is intended to appeal to the technically illiterate user. Apart from that being the vast majority of PC users, who are frankly less well served by even the latest and best so far W7 ( I use it regularly so know of what I speak) isn't the point of having a PC getting work done/ having fun playing games etc with it and not having to endlessly fiddle, unless that is your bag?

Touche Monsieur Turtle.

Mac OS X = unix with a friendly face.

Get some time in as a root user and explore the extra power.

By kaneclem on 23 Jan 2010

Yes the Mac Mini does not make a good home theatre

Who needs a Core 2 Duo to watch movies? Front Row is not an especially good Media Centre application, and as I said, movie playback is not accelerated on the GPU so the CPU has to take the strain, and the fans whir up to compensate.

By technically illiterate I mean the Mac is supposed to simplify even further the PC by providng the illusion of one complete unit. To this end, doing your own upgrades because Apple's own are so expensive defeats the purpose of trying to hide the technical bits from the end use.

It always amuses me that Mac users complain about Windows being hard to use, like they were some sort of backwards 4 year old. Pointing and clicking must be such a chore for you, lets hope Apple introduce computers that respond to thoughts.

btw, you can't say touche on my behalf. If you say it, it shows that I have scored a point.

By windywoo on 24 Jan 2010

Yes the Mac Mini does not make a good home theatre

Who needs a Core 2 Duo to watch movies? Front Row is not an especially good Media Centre application, and as I said, movie playback is not accelerated on the GPU so the CPU has to take the strain, and the fans whir up to compensate.

By technically illiterate I mean the Mac is supposed to simplify even further the PC by providng the illusion of one complete unit. To this end, doing your own upgrades because Apple's own are so expensive defeats the purpose of trying to hide the technical bits from the end use.

It always amuses me that Mac users complain about Windows being hard to use, like they were some sort of backwards 4 year old. Pointing and clicking must be such a chore for you, lets hope Apple introduce computers that respond to thoughts.

btw, you can't say touche on my behalf. If you say it, it shows that I have scored a point.

By windywoo on 24 Jan 2010

The mac mini's a lovely little machine, hindered only by Apple's desperate intent to reclaim the cost in flogging adaptors.

Why didn't they just fit two mini-dvi, or two full size display ports, stacked?

By bubbles16 on 24 Jan 2010

Who turned this into a Mac vs PC debate AGAIN?!

The Zino seems to be targeted at the Home Cinema/Entertainment market, hence the small size and good looks.

I'm surprised at the comment about the Blu-ray option. It was available on the website when I last looked a few weeks ago, albeit at £130!

By Stiggy on 25 Jan 2010

Sooooo Serious

Windywoo

I think you are taking this a bit too seriously. Chill baby.

If you imply Mac users are 'retards' = 'mactards', then expect to be on the end of a wind up.

It's all only atoms, ones and zeros!-)

By kaneclem on 25 Jan 2010

Dont buy a rip-off Dell

These cost from £390 to over £500.
You can buy a descent laptop for that price (and laptops really are portable; they come with a screen)!
About 5 years ago I had a similar but smaller PC than this.
Everything in the design has been taken from elsewhere. Innovative copying perhaps? Well perhaps not – for some reason they copied a 1950s biscuit tin lid.
WRT the Mobility Radeon HD 4330, that is a low performance laptop card.
Yes, it might play space invaders, but if you want to play games or do video editing, make no mistake, this is not for you!
It is FAR too expensive, slow, yesteryear and a copy of a copy.
You can pick up a SFF Lenovo online for under £200. Anything from an E2140 up is faster.
I still like to build what I want! If something breaks you can replace it. If something breaks on that (no doubt in 1year and 1day) you are stuffed.
Its not exactly readily upgradeable either!

Overall Rating 1/6
Features 2/6
Value 4 money 0/6
Performance 1/6

By skgiven on 28 Jan 2010