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Zotac has been known for making motherboards and has a solid rep in that realm, so it seems a natural progression to make ultra small form factor net top boxes to house their mini ITX boards. If you check out their site, Zotac offers a number of different configurations. I was looking for the latest greatest of theirs, built around the AMD E350 (i.e. the AD02), but since it was nowhere to be found in the US, I tried this lower-priced unit with the Neo processor.
I have to say, it's more than I expected. Its graphics are more than adequate for my needs (I'm NOT a heavy-duty gamer) in handling video and music, and the sound quality is acceptable. I put in a 500 GB 2.5" drive along with 4GB of RAM, so I've outfitted it as much as I can at the moment. It's more than capable when dealing with standard Office programs, Internet surfing, and playing videos. I do notice an occasional hiccup when pulling in video-intensive websites, but once loaded, these sites run as expected. I paid another $60 or so for each, bringing the costs into the $325 range plus tax for the whole unit. I didn't buy a keyboard or mouse since I had some extras on hand, but they were not included in the original price either. Incidentally, I'm dual-booting my unit with 64-bit versions of Win 7 Pro and Ubuntu 11.04, and so far, both OS's have had no complaints with the hardware.
The package includes two mounting options: a tabletop stand puts the unit perpendicular to the table which I didn't like, and a VESA mount for hanging the device on the back of a properly-drilled monitor. I happened to have had an old Westinghouse unit that worked well with the mount. None of my other LCD monitors had the proper mounting holes, though. Check yours before you order if you want to mount the unit in this way. (Of course, you could use the bracket to mount the unit to the end of a table or cabinet, too.) The bracket allows easy in and out with a spring-loaded catch.
There are 6 handy USB ports spread around the three "upper" edges of the unit (1 + 4 + 1), along with an eSATA port, and one HDMI port, a gigabit LAN port, a VGA port, and a S/PDIF port. On the side with the power button, an SDHC/MMC/XD card reader and 3.5mm headphone and mic ports, along with a network light and HD light, can be found. Keyboard and mouse must be connected via USB on this device; there are no PS/2 ports.
Access to the interior requires simply removing two thumb screws, which is done easily without a screwdriver, although they are slotted, too, then sliding the cover off. It's a compact space, but adding laptop memory (1x slot) and a laptop hard drive (SATA) is quite easy to do.
My only concern is the heat issue. This unit runs quite warm! It only has a small internal fan over the CPU heatsink. Ventilation and good air flow outside the unit is required! Vent holes exist on only two sides: these are oriented at the top and bottom when the unit is mounted using either of the included mounting devices. Mounting to a monitor accentuates the heat issue because of heat emanating from the monitor, but I've run mine now for many hours, and no performance issues have arisen. Nevertheless, it is still a concern.
Otherwise, if you're looking for a convenient, low-power-using, efficient, basic computer for a kid's bedroom, a home office, or even a regular office or classroom, give serious consideration to one of these.
Click Here to see more reviews about: ZOTAC Athlon Neo X2 1.5GHz/A&V&GbE/Mini ITX Barebone System ZBOXHD-AD01
Product Description
ZOTAC ZBOXHD-AD01 Athlon Neo X2 1.5GHz/A&V&GbE/Mini ITX Barebone System
Product Details
- Brand: Zotac
- Model: ZBOXHD-AD01
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 13.50" h x 9.50" w x 3.00" l, 4.00 pounds
- CPU: AMD Athlon 1.5 GHz
- Memory: 0MB Unknown
- Hard Disk: 0GB
- Processors: 1
Features
- ATI Radeon HD 3200 GPU, AMD Athlon Neo X2 L325 (1.5 GHz, dual-core), AMD 780E + SB710 chipset
- 1 2.5-inch SATA 3.0 Gb/s hard drive, 1 200-pin DDR2-667 SO-DIMM
- ATI Avivo HD technology, ATI Radeon graphics technology, AMD Digital Media Xpress technology
- HDMI (1080p w/audio), HDCP compliant, VGA, Multi-display support
- eSATA, 5 USB 2.0 ports, 10/100/1000 Ethernet (RJ45), Digital S/PDIF output
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