VPN: ZBOXHD-ND22-U
Product ReviewsZotac ZBOX Black / Silver Mini / Booksize Barebone System
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68%
12%
0%
4%
16%
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With 25 User Reviews
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 Rating: Review Date: 09/06/13 |
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Rating: Review Date: 07/26/13 |
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Tiny type elementConnectionsPerformance Really dainty caseNoisier than anticipatedLoses 1 star due to noise This is a pretty decent device. Lots of connections to satisfy almost any individual. I use mine as a music server in my bedroom. Runs Windows 7 fairly swiftly. Appears nice when connected to my Panasonic 50 inch plasma. Plays HD files off Netflix properly with no skips. Also plays BR discs completely off an external BR drive. I put a 750GB HD in mine to hold my whole music collection. The optical audio out sounds extremely good when connected to a higher end DAC. Boots really rapidly. The fan is a bit louder that I would like. You can't hear it substantially when playing music or movies, but its a bit loud otherwise. I have mine set to sleep when not in use to retain the noise down. Overall I'm quite pleased with the performance. This beats the pants of my older, significantly less capable netbook with an Atom chip. Best for a HTPC, little ones Pc, kitchen Pc or as a music server. Wireless overall performance could be a bit better. The complete deal expense about 躔, which incorporates four GB ram, 750 GB HD and Win 7 Property Premium. |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/10/13 |
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Small size. Simple access to internals. (I have a Foxconn nettop which is a b**ch.)Looks great.VESA mount is effortless to use.Far more responsive than the Atom-based comparable systems. Can take 8GB DDR3 in two slots. Gigabit online plus 802.11n. The fan is not really silent. Generic manual. A tiny larger than the smallest nettop systems. Great options in the BIOS including the potential to turn off the case LED light. (We like it on.) And there are even some overclocking selections!We use this in the kitchen as a basic goal pc running Windows 7 Household Premium 32bit. It serves for e mail and internet access as effectively as getting streaming video from an HDHomerun networked digital tuner. It displays each live and recorded Tv with totally no stuttering in full HD. And it also records HD making use of Windows Media Center. We don't use the HD audio but that would be a plus for HTPC use. Each the incorporated stand and VESA mounts are well made. I tried them both but employing the VESA mount meant that we couldn’t wall mount the monitor. We opted to use the stand.This unit is less complicated to set up if you have a USB optical drive, but it can be performed with a USB flash drive. The directions are not in the manual but simple to discover on the net. Early reviews aren’t satisfied with the dynamic fan control. That has been address |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/02/13 |
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Works nicely with Ubuntu and Boxee, serving effectively as my media center. Can do a DVD rip with Handbrake making use of pretty rigorous compression settings in about 4 hours... fairly respectable for such a low value! 1080p playback with no a hitch as extended as the hardware acceleration is configured (i.e. use the binary NVidia drivers)... that's nearing the limit although. Make certain you 'nice' any background rips or you may well see some stutter at that resolution. Fan is audible beneath load, but not loud—I mounted it to the back of the Television with the VESA mount and that's enough to muffle it beneath my notice. For the price tag? None. It's a excellent little box. Most folks may favor if it utilised less costly desktop components at the cost of bigger size, but I happened to have some leftover laptop RAM so that was nonetheless a win for me. A single minor issue I discovered about is that there are multiple 'VESA' standards. The ZBOX can mount straight to either ඓ" or 蔴" sizes (mm spacing in between holes), but most larger screens use a entire crazy range of mounting holes, with different screw sizes. I had to make a tiny custom adapter plate, attach the ZBOX to the plate, and then bolt the plate to one particular of the Tv's mounts. |
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Rating: Review Date: 04/24/13 |
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smaller, LED lights not as well vibrant, sufficient power for most htpc functions, spare mini PCIX slot, ddr3, wireless-N, and so on.bios can mount flash drives as a floppy/cd no USB3.mild hdmi audio handshaking troubles (windows 7 drivers are nonetheless a small testy)sparse documentationcpu fan makes a tiny noise immediately after operating (about the identical amount as a PS3)sleep/hibernate modes do not perform really properly There's a spare mini-PCIX slot in this (need to break warranty sticker to access even though) , so you could add a television tuner to this simply. CPU is not fairly strong enough to computer software render 1080p content, but the ION handles it fine.audio keeps cutting out due to hdmi handshaking. Changing the resolution to 720p then back to 1080p syncs it back up even though. Set up the ION chipset drivers from NVIDIAs site. The Zotac ones are junk. |
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Rating: Review Date: 03/17/13 |
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-Actual dual core CPU; SMOKES Atom chips-Quiet, Compact (about the same size as my Wii, maybe smaller sized)-Plays 20 GB 1080P Blu-ray rips more than network no issue, just make certain you have hardware acceleration / rendering ON or else it attempts to use the CPU for rendering; 1.two GHz can't hang with 720P, you gotta use the ION chipset! -Video drivers from nvidia's site cause video to cut out two seconds after boot, not sure what the deal is, ones from zotac's web-site work fine.-weird problems coming out of sleep, but BIOS update resolved.-XBMC live didn't see network, not confident why? didn't invest much time tinkering, works great running as a program in Windows 7 SetupGB 5400 RPM Laptop SATA HDD1 x four GB DIMM DDR3IOgear wireless keyboard with constructed in trackball (failed 1st day I owned it, not the zbox's fault)Windows 7 Ultimate x64 with XBMC loading on startupOther notes:Can play Group Fortress 2 @ about 30 fps in 720p, and plays League of Legends in 1080 no problem. |
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Rating: Review Date: 03/10/13 |
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Every thing operates out of the box with XBMC Live 10ቦ.1Plays hi-def AC3 MKV files from my NAS beautifully by way of ethernet over HDMI.Leading side USB port is good for keyboard or remote FOB.Can turn off the vibrant orange ring via bios. None Runs cooler vertical. My GPU temp dropped 20 degrees going vertical immediately after initially laying on its side on the VESA mount. |
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Rating: Review Date: 02/28/13 |
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Faster cpu than the Atom, better graphics card than the "next-gen ION", incredibly compact and quiet, and plenty of ports. I am totally thrilled with this acquire! None If you want CD/DVD/BRD access, obtain an external ASUS drive; wonderful costs! |
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Rating: Review Date: 02/15/13 |
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modest affordable plastic case, very noisy annoying fan.sound crapped out immediately after two weeks I bought this fo a HTPC using XBMC.method worked fine for two weeks and now sound has stopped functioning.I'm fed up with this piece of junk and can not even be bothered with an rma since I seriously do not want to go through this all over once again.I am trowing this in the garbage can and will purchase a REVO Manufacturer Response:Sorry to see you are experiencing issues with our item. ZOTAC has technical help accessible 24ǝ to fully assist you with diagnosis and possible replacement if necessary. Thank you!External Link(s): ZOTAC Technical Help| |
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Rating: Review Date: 11/30/12 |
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Does almost everything it is suppose to and I wanted it to do.1. Boxee 1080p verify2. youtube 1080p examinethree. netflix HD verifyfour. stays cool and is quiet (once setting fan settings in bios)five. really rapidly for a HTPC and can multi job really effectively and run applications like utorr, vent, and firefox while watching in boxee none throw 4g of ram and a WD hd and your golden. Set up win 7 via a flash drive so no need to have to acquire a external. Really like it |
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Rating: Review Date: 10/31/12 |
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This little ace does exactly what it says. It's a effectively-constructed mini Computer best for media applications. It runs cool and quiet and is very responsive given its 1.2GHz CPU. Small to say right here, other than Zotac could have included a DVI to VGA adapter to ease the setup process and expand compatibility. I originally ordered an SSD drive for this device. Regrettably, the SSD failed inside 30 minutes and I had to revert to a 250GB laptop drive. Even even though the storage is slower than I'd like, the unit performs nicely with Windows 7 Ultimate, x64. We use it mostly as the video source for a small business projector connected by means of HDMI that displays enterprise graphics and some total-screen HD 鼐p) video. The video renders flawlessly and there's no evidence that the program is even close to nearing its capacity to deliver media with no delay. |
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Rating: Review Date: 10/14/12 |
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Additional effective than Atom based nettops. I can\'t install wifi driver on XP (I am acquiring error "Device not present..."). Win 7 finds the device and installs device with no dilemma. Zotac so called buyer support forwarded the link to the drivers as if buyers do not know where to discover those on Zotac site. The dilemma is that these drivers do not function. |
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Rating: Review Date: 09/10/12 |
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Powerful sufficient to stream any HD I've thrown at it (including individuals running at higher frames per second than typical). I use it for XBMC, and the moment XBMC ultimately completed their updates to totally help ION, everything worked like a charm. No hiccups, no stuttering. Accomplished recording by way of HDMI and a Hauppauge USB tuner, all flawless. Max wattage pull (as tested by means of kill-a-watt) was 33W and this was though doing video encrypting Not significantly to complain about other than looks. The silver trimming tends to make it appear inexpensive and the black plastic shows fingerprints. I don't really feel either of these are actually worth complaining about (you know what the thing looks like before you acquire it...), but it bugs my fiance, so I believed to mention it. There's no need for something a lot more than 4GB of RAM (even with a Windows install) from all the testing I've done. Anything that can use more would seemingly out-run the processor. It's a nettop, although, and this is expected.It's interesting that some people today have complained about the noise. Next to an XBOX, or even a PS3, the ZBOX is quieter. I count on a modest amount of noise from this box. But honestly, if I'm in fact Making use of the box, I crank up the property theater and I couldn't hear the box even if I tried. |
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Rating: Review Date: 08/26/12 |
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Small and compact form factor. inside, observed a tiny rust/corrosion at various soldier points along with fingerprints on the PCB about the area (rust/corrosion most probably brought on by the fingertip sweat of the worker abroad who was touching the inside with no gloves). This , coupled with shipping/packing difficulties that I won't go into right here, prompted an quick RMA request. I've been a extended time, satisfied Newegg buyer. I'm in the middle of my very first RMA ever at Newegg. I've always had wonderful service in the past from Newegg so I'm expecting this encounter to be behind me soon. I will return to write a new evaluation when my replacement has arrived and is performing but as it stands now, this 1 slipped by good quality control dept. and has price me return shipping and down time. I hope this specific incident was a one-time thing but I'll soon discover out. |
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Rating: Review Date: 08/23/12 |
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I've owned this for just more than one month. I purchased it to pair with a new Panasonic 46PGT24 tv. Dropped in an Agility 60GB SSD drive and 8GB Critical RAM. It works superbly. No studdering, full HDMI support, and so forth. Not expandable, but for my Tv this isn't an concern. I was just thinking of acquiring another one as it's far a lot more potent than my present desktop... sad, but correct. On second thought, I assume I'll go with an i5-760 or i7-some thing for the new desktop. The glowing orange ring on the side matches the glowing orange ring about my logitech mini remote's touch pad. Just nice. |
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Rating: Review Date: 08/19/12 |
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I've had the zbox for about a day. Installed a 250GB seagate HD and installed 2GB of memory from an old note book. Then loaded Mac OS X 10.6 as per web instruction. Had to load the wifi driver separately from Ralink. Flawless. So far I'm quite impressed. wifi strength is incredibly sensible, I have no notion what all the squack is about. I did a bench mark test that scored 70, not that impressive thinking of my five year old macbook ƒghz) scored 130. All in all its a good clean program none |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/17/12 |
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So far it operates I tried three diverse USB DVD drives and have not identified a single that functions. Manufacturer Response:Sorry to hear you are obtaining issues with our product. ZOTAC technical assistance is readily available 24ǝ to enable you with diagnosis and replacement if essential. Thank you!External Link(s): ZOTAC Technical Support| |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/11/12 |
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I purchased this as an more HTPC solely to stream FIOS video from a Ceton tuner card operating in a workstation elsewhere on my LAN. The system integrated below win7ኜ with out a single difficulty. It's surely much more speedy than my prior Atom 330 construct (IONITX-F-E) and plays streaming HD video just as great as the boat anchor Motorola STB that Verizon uses. (Provided you use wired ethernet.)OCZ Vertex Series OCXSSD2-IVTX30GXXXKingston ValueRAM DDR3 1333 Ɣ GB total) (sigh) The wifi sucks. If you intend to use this to play video on a wifi network just run away unless you intend to either replace the Azurewave mini-PCI card with an Intel part or with a USB adapter. My expertise isn't exclusive as discussions on other fora will show. (I believed I may possibly get lucky.) Net surfing is passable by way of wifi. But I can't even get a video stream to start off playing unless I place the technique unit a couple of feet away from either of my access points. (FIOS/actiontec and Engenius Tech ECB9500 on different channels.) And even then the video tears just about every five-ten seconds and is not worth watching. I might attempt an aftermarket wifi adapter. -incredibly quiet- Draws 22 watts while playing video. 27 watts max in the course of startup. |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/17/12 |
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Forget Atom & ION. This is the minimal ION platform worth thinking about. Low power and effective. Perfect always on pc around the home. Netflix HD works wonderful. All the connections you'll need. Tiny also "plastic". with Win7 64bit & 8G of memory it juggles numerous users and VMs w/o problem. A more quickly 7200 drive is a have to. |
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Rating: Review Date: 04/22/12 |
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Modest. Mac mini sized. Quickly enough for every little thing I've thrown at it as a common purpose Ubuntu ten.ten desktop - significantly far more responsive than any atom netbook or netbox I've ever triedFrom the booting bios chirp to the ubuntu ten.10 login < 8 seconds consistently. That's more quickly than my desktop - almost certainly the SSD I installedEffortless to open - installing an SSD and some ram took much less time than receiving them out of their plastic wrapped hiding locations - the drive moiunt is truly basic and clever. The sodimm sockets are easy to fill Not affordable compared to dual atoms but significantly, much fasterFan/heatsink - see the silentpc review - its not silent but I'm old and deaf enough not to actually care all that significantly - if you want a silent media pc this may well be a tiny noisyUtilizing a standard hdd will make the heat complications worse I threw in a 60GB ssd and 4GB of ddr3 sodimm ram. I haven't tried an ordinary hdd given that I don't want the storage there. Will update when I attempt the wifi - review say it's not wonderful - I utilized a wired connection. |
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Rating: Review Date: 04/22/12 |
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I replaced a tower at my desk with this - 64GB SSD, 4GB RAM, Linux Mint (Ubuntu 10 based.) Boots quicker and runs at least as well as the tower it replaced - which was no slouch. Entirely 100% content. Every thing works seriously properly. The SSD actually makes this setup rock. It is quiet and unobtrusive. Absolutely everyone is impressed. Just can't complain. Yes it is a lttle cheapy hunting, but it is tucked beneath a monitor stand with a USB DVD-RW drive on leading. You hardly notice its existence. |
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Rating: Review Date: 04/13/12 |
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Add a challenging drive and ram and you have a nice small HTPC. It is a even smaller than I imagined, nearly the very same size as a router. And unlike other models, this one has optical audio output (on the back) No troubles at all playing back 1080p MKV at 1920x1080, it is even quiet when performing so. Far exceeds the performance of atom models. And its the sort of overall performance distinction you can essentially feel, not just on paper. Would have preferred a dual band wifi chip, this one particular is two.4Ghz only. CPU runs a little hot when maxed out. But because video decoding is handled by the nVidia chip, it isn't an issue as an HTPC. **Windows 7 users make confident you get the updated wifi driver from RaLink, (model 2860) The windows update version has rather poor signal strength. A Bios update is also accessible from the Zotac site. |
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Rating: Review Date: 02/22/12 |
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SmallerLots of USB portsSurprisingly rapid (just don't expect significantly when it comes to gaming) Sound stopped operating within weeksSpotty WifiFlimsy caseLouder than expectedNo DVD drive I wanted to discover a smaller Computer that would take parts from my broken Macbook Pro and at some point turn out to be a HTPC. The Zbox fit the bill, and I was happy with it initially. Surprisingly, I was in a position to get OS X running with all of the information from my Macbook's difficult drive intact. It was louder than I expected, so I lowered the fan speed in the BIOS. The wifi card was spotty, so I replaced it with a superior one particular from my Macbook. Then, Specifically 31 days soon after I purchased it, the sound on the proper channel stopped working, rendering it useless as a HTPC. Newegg was no support. I'm nevertheless in speak to with Zotac. I'm extremely disappointed. Manufacturer Response:Sorry to hear you are getting difficulty with our item. This item must still be covered under warranty, please speak to our assistance department and we will be pleased to support you with diagnosis and replacement if needed. Thanks!External Link(s): ZOTAC Technical Assistance| Support Ticket Submission| ZOTAC Request a RMA| |
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Rating: Review Date: 09/21/11 |
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With the NVIDIA ION, playback of 1080i content material with MythTV, XBMC, Boxee, and other VDPAU-enabled software is superb. Looks wonderful on my 40in LCD Tv. And thanks to the Celeron CPU, other activities such as flash video, web browsing, compiling code, GIMP, and even 3-D games run smoothly. It is far more versatile than the boxes with the usual Atom chips. The box is small and not bad seeking, and by working with HDMI, you have only a couple of modest cables coming out the back - it sits nicely on leading of the dvd player, with no complaints from my interior decorator/wife. The unit does have a fan which runs quick when the box is doing any heavy lifting - but it is reasonably quiet, and at couch-distance, it is barely noticeable. It was a snap to install a hard-drive and memory, and then load Ubuntu from a USB key. The glowing orange ring seemed kind of cool at initial but that gets old quickly - fortunately it can be shut off by way of the BIOS. It would be nice if you could control it from software program although.All of the ports (ethernet, USB, HDMI, and even the SD card slot) are upside down when you have the box sitting horizontally. This is really annoying when you are attempting to plug something in and it just won't go, due to the fact you assume that the orientation would be like any other typical consumer device!Though the box is not bad searching, it's not that fantastic either. The black top and bottom are cool, but the silver-colored sides make it appear a small inexpensive/clunky. It would have been good to have an all-black color scheme. I put a 30GB SSD in this thing, it boots into Ubuntu so swiftly that it is generally up and operating before the Tv comes on. I also added a Rosewill USB MediaCenter remote, which works wonderful with MythTV.The box does have built in WiFI, but I haven't genuinely tried to make use of it. Obtaining Ubuntu/MythTV etc to run, with video and audio more than HDMI, and LIRC for the Rosewill remote, took quite a bit of googling and hacking. Not advised for non-geeks! |
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Rating: Review Date: 09/13/11 |
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Great solid create and performance for mini HTPC, very best of the ION chipsets(original) combined with a full Celeron processor. this is the only create I would have ever considered using a Celeron processor in, but it's a dream. Operating PinguyOS, a flavor of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid, Boxee works, Hulu Plus works, what more could I want? Mini PCIe slot for half cards does not work at this time with SSD drives. voided the warranty pretty much straight out of the box to try the mini PCIe SSD drive, and it didn't work!!! Located a post on 1 of the boards shortly right after that to come across that I am not the only 1 with this issue. C'mon Zotac!! |
Every thing worked correct out of the box. Installed Windows 7 Pro 64bit, and all the drivers had been located. The Celeron is surprisingly powerful, with a WEI subscore of three.9. Wireless card is powerful and rapidly, HDMI performs flawlessly, and it produces really little noise. Didn't even require a screwdriver to open the case up and add the RAM and really hard drive. Tons of USB ports, digital audio output, and eSATA constructed in? Yes, I'll take it. Casing can be flimsy when opening it up and adding RAM and the really hard drive. Use a bit of caution. Used my old 4GB DDR3 RAM and 5400rpm 500GB difficult drive to put in this machine after I upgraded my laptop. I was skeptical, but this machine does not disappoint. With a Hauppauge Tv Tuner, you can watch and record live Television with ease employing Windows Media Center. The 800Mhz FSB on the dual-core Celeron is a significant step above even the most up-to-date Atoms, and it still eats up hardly any energy. This is really a mini pc powerhouse. Don't settle for an Atom media center. Do oneself a favor and grab a single of these. Worth just about every penny.