Under the skin
Looking from the rear, the slimline optical drive sits on top of a sideways-mounted 3.5in hard drive. The WLAN card, if specified, fits into the mini-PCIe slot underneath, and the CPU is cooled by a chunky heatsink. The only fan on the topside is the 60mm that pulls in air from the rear and over the heatpipe. It's not easy to determine where it then gets vented outside again, though.
Accessing the memory is easier. Turn the unit over and remove the two larger screws. The module for the discrete mobile GPU, top-left, and associated cooling is not present on lower-end models. Much like laptops, a couple of SODIMMs provide the system's RAM capacity, so you'll probably have to discard the supplied modules if you want to increase the memory at a later date.
The bundle includes the external power-brick, laser mouse and cheap-feeling keyboard. Software-wise, there's Windows 7 Home Premium and the usual Dell drivers DVD. Works 9 is also thrown in for good measure, as well as a Blu-ray compatible software player if such a drive is present.
Warranty
Dell has three types of warranty cover with the machine. The standard terms are for a one-year cover based on a collect-and-return service that can take up to 14 working days from the moment the problem is reported. The advanced option includes in-home service and can be purchased as one, two, three, or four-year cover. Lastly, the premium warranty is based on next-business-day cover and can be bought as an up-to three-year plan. Our advice would be to purchase the basic warranty and then contact Dell to arrange a cheaper upgrade, if needs be.
Options...and value
Dell's Zino HD ships with a choice of four AMD Athlon chips - Neo X2 6850e, X2 3250e, 2850e, and 2650e - hard-drive choices ranging from 160GB to 1TB, memory from 2GB to 8GB, integrated video (Radeon HD 3200) or a discrete mobility Radeon HD 4330 gaming card, and optional WiFi. Further, models higher up in the range are generally bundled with a monitor.
For example, the base £279 package includes the single-core Athlon 2650e chip, 2GB RAM, 320GB hard-drive, integrated graphics, 8x DVD/RW, and Windows Home Premium 64-bit. The review sample is significantly better, equipped with the dual-core X2 6850e, 8GB RAM, 1TB hard-drive, discrete MR 4330 graphics, WiFi, and Blu-ray ROM. The trouble is that pushing up the quality of the system leads to an etail price of around £600 - over 2x the base price.
Noise
Being such a small system with, potentially, reasonable gaming pedigree, the noise profile is very good. The Zino HD can just about be heard humming along when one is pootling around in Windows. Load up a game, let it run for 20 minutes and, whilst louder, the noise is acceptable - certainly quieter than a number of notebooks with a similar feature-set. Playing Blu-ray films brings other factors into play, which we'll discuss on page six.
