Final thoughts
The Dell Zino HD is a cute-looking mini-desktop that's aimed at the user who wants a stylish PC that performs basic computing and multimedia tasks with ease. Eschewing power for a smaller footprint, the Zino HD, powered by AMD technology, is available from £279 through to over £750 for a model that's supplied with a monitor.In its most basic form, the machine will provide enough oomph for everyday tasks such as word processing, Internet browsing or casual gaming from the integrated graphics. Spend more money and a faster, more capable CPU can be specified in tandem with a discrete graphics card for better gaming performance.
Our review sample, costing around £600 for the base unit, is outfitted with the fastest dual-core chip, Blu-ray drive and Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics card. Connections are very good across the Zino HD family, from eSATA to HDMI, and the model makes a case as a do-it-all PC with a particular nod towards home-theatre usage.
Performance is healthy across the board, but a few niggles take away the lustre. The Blu-ray drive's whirring can be annoying when playing a film, and the hard-drive's constant access may become irksome in a quiet environment.
Dell's got it almost right with the Zino HD, we feel. There's something for everyone's budget. Able to be configured such that it's more than an ION-based system, we'd recommend that Dell pays a little more attention to the optical drive, adds in an IR receiver for a remote, and cures the hard-drive vibrations. A snip in the price wouldn't hurt: £500 for this model would be rather tasty.
The good
Small, elegant design
Decent connectivity
Pretty quiet when not playing from the optical drive
Energy-efficient as a laptop
Wide range of specifications to suit most budgets
The not so good
Noisy Blu-ray drive
Vibration-dampening wouldn't go amiss
You clearly pay a premium for having a smaller form factor
No IR receiver
HEXUS Rating
We consider any product score above '50/100' as a safe buy. The higher the score, the higher the recommendation from HEXUS to buy. Simple, straightforward buying advice.
The rating is given in relation to the category the component competes in, therefore Dell Inspiron 400 Zino HD is evaluated with respect to our 'mid-range' criteria.
Dell Inspiron 400 Zino HD (as reviewed)
HEXUS Where2Buy
The homepage for the Dell Zino HD can be found here.HEXUS Right2Reply
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