Dell Inspiron Zino HD Pro Reviews

The Zino HD 410 is a good-looking piece of kit, but we couldn't help thinking our review sample was more powerful than required. If you're going to task it with little more than media playback, it makes more sense to go for one of the cheaper specifications.

Conclusion While small form factor desktops have always been something of a niche market, the offerings have multiplied substantially in number over the past few months, thanks in large parts to very low power processors offered by Intel (and, to a limited extent, AMD). These boxes have always been of dubious use, however, since the CPUs were too weak to do much besides read email and browse the web (as long as you didn’t want to watch HD Flash). That left the Mac Mini and high-priced offerings from boutique manufacturers, like Shuttle. The Inspiron Zino HD, however, offered an alternative. Its first incarnation wasn’t able to really sway customers away, but this one might. Useful CPU, useful GPU, lots of storage and the ability to play anything you might need. As small form factor PCs go, it’s just about perfect. The KB and mouse, though? Come on, Dell, let’s knock a few bucks off.

The Zino HD 410 is a speedy, connected, Blu-ray-ready system that takes up little more space on your bookshelf than a typical Victor Hugo novel would. You can find better-performing, easier-to-upgrade budget systems. But if a compact design is high on your wish list of desirable features, this compact PC makes a lot of sense.

The Dell Inspiron Zino HD (Inspiron 410) is the perfect centerpiece in any home-theater setup. Assuming that you already have a cable company DVR, then the system becomes the perfect HDTV companion, so we award it the Editors' Choice for compact desktop PCs.

The Dell Zino HD 410 is a speedy, connected, Blu-ray-ready system that takes up little more space on your bookshelf than a typical Victor Hugo novel would. You can find better-performing, easier-to-upgrade budget systems. But if a compact design is high on your wish list of desirable features, this compact PC makes a lot of sense.

Dell's Zino HD is a great value mini PC, it's not got the quickest processor but the rest of the specification is generous - with plenty of memory, a big hard disk and Blu-ray playback.

Despite its cute looks and appealing low power design, the Zino HD is not actually efficient in terms of cost or power to performance - certainly not if you factor in actual 2D applications such as photo editing and video encoding.

The compact design of the Zino HD will certainly appeal to anyone that wants a neat and attractive media centre PC, or even just a snazzy desktop for day-to-day work. However, the 1.5GHz processor is a bit feeble, and if Apple can beat it with the similarly priced Mac Mini, then Dell certainly ought to be doing better on that score. Still, the Zino HD does offer a Blu-ray option that the Mac Mini lacks, and its video playback capabilities ensure that it will work well as all-round entertainment system.

While the headline price of £329 looks very attractive for a compact computer that can be pressed into service as a cheap office or home PC, the price starts to ratchet up as you add the useful extras. The high-defintion-disc playing machine we tested is expensive at over £630; lose the Blu-ray option on the version we tried, add wireless-n, and you can have a sub-£500 media centre PC that approaches the hardware performance of the entry-level Apple Mac mini, at exactly the same £510 price. The Mac is one-third again faster in benchmark tests, quieter, more compact and arguably more elegant, safer to use and less expensive to run. In the Dell’s favour is its better gaming potential and more bountiful storage.

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.

Though it’s not exactly the best value proposition around, Dell’s Zino HD offers pretty much the ideal combination of size, power and features for the perfect home theatre or small desktop PC. As long as you aren’t interested in gaming and aren't tempted by a Mac mini, this is one very attractive machine!

The Dell Inspiron Zino HD's compact design is derivative of the Apple Mac mini, but it has all the connectors it needs to sit under that big HDTV you bought last holiday season.

The Inspiron Zino HD provides impressive connectivity and performance in a colorful and compact enclosure.

Dell Zino HD Review. Dell's Zino HD could only become cuter if it was adorned with Hello Kitty graphics... and given its interchangeable lids, that's still a possibility. With a very low power AMD CPU, Radeon HD 4330 graphics, Blu-Ray drive and a terabyte of storage: is this a killer media PC?

In the right configuration, Dell's Inspiron Zino HD will fit seamlessly into your living room as a PC-based video source. Due to its uneven handling of even standard-def video, this $468 build isn't quite up to the task. Fortunately, Dell offers the right upgrades to get you to the hallowed ground of PC-based video content--just be prepared to spend a little bit more to get there.

Dell introduces its new line of compact, stylish Inspiron PCs with the Zino HD. We put it to the test