Review On the face of it, Apple’s Mac Mini makes most 'small form-factor’ PCs look like a pile of junk. The Mini’s ultra-compact design also makes it ideal for use in an office or as a stylish little media centre in the living room. Evidently, Dell has taken note - hence the appearance of its Inspiron Zino range of compact PCs.

Splits from Atom: Dell's Inspiron Zino HD

It’s always been surprising that no Windows PC has ever really come along to challenge the Mac Mini – especially given Apple’s creeping price hikes. The Mac Mini is now far from the low-cost Mac that it was originally intended to be, with the cheapest incarnation currently priced at £510. That’s hardly a bargain given that it doesn’t include a monitor, keyboard or mouse.

We’ve seen a few compact ‘nettop’ boxes, such as Acer’s Revo, in recent months, but these have tended to use low-power Atom processors that couldn’t pass muster as a proper desktop PC. However, Dell’s Zino HD packs a more powerful desktop processor.

Dell simply describes the Inspiron Zino HD as a "mini desktop computer" but its design clearly suggests that it’s intended as a living room media centre too. Measuring 195mm square and 85mm high, it’s larger than the 163 x 163 x 50mm Mac Mini. The Zino HD isn’t quite as neatly designed as the Apple, either. The black plastic chassis looks a bit cheap when sitting alongside the silvery metallic trim of the Mac.

Even so, it’s still a darn sight smaller and better looking than most SFF PCs. The top panel adds a dash of colour – Plum Purple for our review unit, although there’s range of other colours available, including exotic delights such as "Red Swirl" and "Green Scatter", which cost an extra £30.

The HD models are equipped with an HDMI port

The front panel presents you with two USB 2.0 ports, memory card slot, headphone socket and optical drive, while the rear of the unit provides two further USB 2.0 ports, two eSata ports, Gigabit Ethernet, audio input and output, and both VGA and HDMI interfaces for connecting to a computer monitor or HD TV.

The power supply unit is small enough to hide out of sight behind the Zino HD, and power consumption averaged 40W for most tasks, peaking at 60W when running 3D game Far Cry 2, and dipping to just 2W in sleep mode. The unit emits a low, steady hum while running, but this isn’t obtrusive and won’t spoil your enjoyment when watching films or listening to music.

Wireless keyboard and mouse are supplied with the unit

The Zino HD is supplied with a decent quality wireless keyboard and mouse. There’s no monitor included in the price, although Dell offers a monitor as a build-to-order option with prices starting at £120 for a 20in display with 1600 x 900 resolution.

It’s worth pointing out that there is a basic Zino model that lacks the HDMI port, and is equipped with a 1.6GHz Atom processor, priced at around £250. It’s also interesting to note that there’s not an Intel chip in sight for any of the Zino HD configurations. Prices for the Zino HD start at £279 for a model with a 1.6GHz Athlon 64 processor, 2GB of memory, 320GB hard disk and integrated Radeon HD 3200 graphics.

Our review model had a considerably higher spec, though, coming in at £630 with 1.5GHz dual-core Athlon X2 processor, 4GB of Ram, 1TB 7200rpm Sata hard disk, a discrete ATI Radeon HD 4330 graphics chip with 512MB of video memory and 802.11n wireless networking. That price also includes a combined Blu-ray/DVD±RW drive, which adds a hefty £140 to the total price.

If you settle for a straightforward DVD burner the price drops to a more modest £490. You can also bump the processor speed to a maximum of 1.8GHz, which costs an extra £80. The Zino HD is supplied with the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium, along with a copy of Microsoft Works, PowerDVD Blu-ray software, and 15-month subscription to McAfee Security Centre.

The relatively modest 1.5GHz processor can’t compete with the more powerful processors typically found in larger desktop systems – or even the 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo found in the entry-level Mac Mini – so its overall score in our PCMark Vantage benchmarks isn’t terribly impressive. Even so, it’s perfectly adequate for day-to-day computing chores such as surfing the web and running Microsoft Office applications.

Benchmark Tests

PCMark Vantage Results

Longer bars are better

3DMark Vantage Report

Apparently, a 3D Mark score of zero might not 'represent the true performance of the graphics hardware'

The use of the discrete Radeon HD 4330 GPU also gives graphics and video performance a bit of a boost and the Zino HD was able to play a selection of Blu-ray films on our Samsung HD TV with nary a stutter.

As a Blu-ray player with only 2.1 audio, can it really become a sitting room success?

Gaming performance isn’t a strong point, but is still adequate for the occasional burst of gaming action. The 3DMark Vantage benchmark software actually returned a score of zero, along with the helpful advice that “this score may not reflect the true performance of your graphics hardware”.

However, the Zino HD did manage a playable 28-30fps when running Far Cry at 1280 x 800 resolution, so it’ll be adequate for a quick burst of gaming when you – or your kids – get home from the pub on a Friday night.

Performing as a compact media centre for the living room, the biggest disappointment is audio support. This is limited to just analogue stereo or digital 2.1 output, with no surround sound configuration available in the Zino HD range. That seems like a glaring omission for a PC that is so clearly intended for use with HD and Blu-ray films that have 5.1 and 7.1 soundtracks.

Colour options cost extra – you pays yer money and you takes yer choice

Verdict

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. ®

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