A Blu-ray-playing Windows 7 media centre with a terabyte of storage and a dedicated graphics processor for £600? Not too shabby, huh? Such a system is Dell's new Inspiron Zino HD set-top PC, and it's worth more than one of your glances.
Basically, it's one of those doesn't-have-a-monitor setups, like the Asus Eee Box or the equally Blu-ray packing ViewSonic VOT550 we saw a couple of months back. The idea is you'll hook it up to an HDTV via HDMI and use a little wireless keyboard and mouse to access all your content.
The basic configuration costs a measly £300, helped in part, we expect, by the fact the Zino HD uses AMD processors, rather than Intel. In this config you get a 1.6GHz AMD CPU, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 320GB hard drive, a standard DVD-RW drive and integrated graphics. This is a decent option for playing standard-def media, though it should handle some 720p HD content.
A more satisfying spec we configured can be snagged for just over £600. For that you can get a dual-core 1.5GHz AMD CPU, 3GB of DDR2 RAM, a 1TB hard disk, a Blu-ray drive and a dedicated ATI Radeon HD 4330 graphics processor. This is your 1080p guy, and it should easily be capable of playing modern 3D games as well.
Advanced configurations include 8GB of RAM and a 1.8GHz AMD CPU. This will cost you a tenner under £800.
The Zino HD is available in a bunch of colours and all run Windows 7 64-bit. They're available now direct from Dell.
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