Dell's Inspiron Zino HD

It seems that European countries always get things us Americans want before we do, especially in the technological market. That is certainly the case with Dell's new Inspiron Zino HD mini PC. This mini PC is available already over in Ireland and even in the UK, which is driving us Americans just a little bit crazy with envy.

Now when we say that this is a mini PC, we actually mean it is a mini PC. The thing is small coming in perfectly square at 7.8" by 7.8". But just because it looks small doesn't mean it doesn't come with some incredible hardware. You can customize the heck out of this little guy and there are a ton of options. You can choose from either an AMD Athlon Neo X2 6850e, AMD Athlon X2 3250e, AMD Athlon 2850e or AMD Athlon 2650e processor to start off with. Then choose an operating system from either Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit or Professional 64-bit, Windows Vista Home Basic 32-bit or Home Premium 64-bit or Ubuntu Linux 9.04. Upgrade your memory to as much as 8GB of 800MHz DDR2 SODIMM with either 160 GB, 250 GB, 320 GB, 500 GB, 750 GB or 1 TB of 7200 rpm SATA II hard disk space.

Among this is the optional 8x DVD +/- RW and DVDRW/BD-ROM disc drives and the choice of an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 or ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics card. All mini PCs come with the Conexant CX20561 2.1 Channel sound card and Broadcom BCM57780 10/100/1000 or Mini PCle WLAN card(802.11 b/g or 802.11 a/b/g/n). The Inspiron Zino HD comes with a plethora of ports as well. On the front of the PC are two USB 2.0 connectors, one headphone connector and one 4-in-1 memory card reader. On the back there is one microphone connector, one line-out connector, one VGA connector, one RJ45 connector(10/100/1000), two USB 2.0-compliant connectors, two eSATA connectors and one HDMI connector. In addition to all of these ports there is on Mini PCle WLAN Card(802.11 b/g or 802.11 a/b/g/n) expansion slot.

The Inspiron Zino HD as a USFF form factor with dimensions measuring 7.8 inches(197mm) tall, 7.8 inches(197mm) wide, 3.4 inches(89mm) deep and weighs 3.35 pounds(1.6kg). It has either a 65 watt with UMA or 75 watt with MXM Graphics card power source and Kensington Lock security. The Zino HD also has one 3.5" HDD drive bay, one 12.7 mm trayload ODD drive bay and two available Memory DIMM slots.

While this mini PC is completely customizable, Dell has already gone and created three different models for you already on their website. The first model has an AMD A64 2650E 1.6GHz 512k processor, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit operating system, 2048MB dual Channel DDR2 800MHz [2x1024] memory and 320GB (7200rpm) SATA hard drive. This model will run you around $433. The next model has an AMD X2 3250E 1.5 GHz 512k processor, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit operating system, 3072MB Dual Channel DDR2 800MHz [1x2048 + 1x1024] memory and 500GB (7200rpm) serial ATA hard drive with a $785 price tag. The final model comes with an AMD X2 6850E 1.8 GHz 512k processor, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit operating system, 6144MB Dual channel DDR2 800MHz [1x2048 = 1x4096] memory and 1TB (7200rpm) SATA hard drive with a $1,124 price tag.

What is going to catch people's eyes first is the colorful customization options you have for the shell of the PC. The Inspiron Zino HD mini PC comes with 10 interchangeable color and design shells to further your customization desires allowing you to make a truly unique piece of equipment. Despite which way you decide to take your Inspiron Zino HD mini PC you are sure to have an amazing computer. It's small size allows you to easily store it anywhere you want and still have tremendous amounts of spare space on your desk and its specs are enough to make anybody happy. But you are going to have to wait a little bit until it actually comes out in America, unless you want to go to Ireland or the UK to get one that is.