Today Deal Zotac ZBOX AMD E-350 APU 1.6GHz Dual Core with HD, Memory, and Blu-Ray All-in-One Mini PC Other Components ZBOX-AD03BR-PLUS Lower Price

By 

Matthew DeNardo (Boston, MA) –

  

I purchased this computer once it became available on Amazon and have been using it as an HTPC for about two months at the time of this writing, so I have a pretty good basis for comparison. I am intentionally trying to cover items not discussed in the reviews already posted.

The packaging was both minimal and effective. Upon opening the box, I found the computer, various cables, and the envelope with the setup guide and software. I installed extra RAM, which was easy enough to perform and the included instructions had a section dedicated to doing just that.

There was no OS included (by design), which was fine by me. I toyed with the idea of installing xbmc as an OS, but decided to go with Windows 7 due to Blu-Ray support. Since W7 did all I needed it to, dual-booting wasn’t necessary for me. Setting up Windows 7 was easy, though I needed to use the included driver disc to get HDMI output to a full 1920×1080. I am primarily using xbmc on this machine, but have WMC set up for Hulu and integration with PowerDVD. One negative of the setup is that PowerDVD came as part of a suite, the rest of which I found useless. I didn’t see an option to install *just* the software I wanted. On the plus side, PowerDVD is one of the few software packages I have ever seen that decodes and overlays closed captioning on the HDMI signal. That is a major plus for me and I commend them for selecting this software as opposed to TotalMediaTheatre or another package.

One quirk of the hardware is that all of the ports are upside-down. It is not a negative, but a curiousity nonetheless. Another is that there is only one USB port in the back. I would have preferred more back there. Currently I am using all three ports on the machine: one for an external hard drive, one for a USB DAC, and one for an IR remote. None of these devices is USB3, so I cannot comment on whether the performance is improved as advertised.

Blu-Ray playback has only hit one snag in the two months I’ve been using it and that was with the movie “28 Days Later.” There was a particular time that it could not play through. I skipped ahead about 10 seconds and playback continued fine. I did not experience the issue with a commercial Blu-Ray player, but I did not try any other software, so am unsure if PowerDVD or the system itself was responsible.

For the most part, the hardware just works. If only software HTPC solutions were as simple. I would recommend this to anyone who does not want to build their own HTPC. When you factor in the cost of your time, this is quite price-competitive for what you get, as well.

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