Zotac ZBOX HD-ID11-U Intel Atom D510 NM10 Chipset 1 x 200Pin Next-Gen NVIDIA ION GPU Mini / Booksize Barebone System

Pros: These little Zotac's are great workstations. Easy to setup, low power consumption. I have bought over 35 Zotac ZBOX's since last year

Cons: Zotac will not help me with motherboard that went bad one month after the warranty ended and they told me that they dont sell replacement motherboards for the ZBOX's!

Other Thoughts: I would like to think that Zotac would help me out considering I have purchased over 35 ZBOX's (25 of them from NewEgg). I cannot beleive I cannot buy a replacement motherboard either!

Pros: Work's right out of the box with a usb thumbdrive using OpenElec as an HTPC. Play's 1080p movies flawlessly, will buy more of these for the house.

-Very low power consumption.

Cons: None, I can't be happier with this box.

Pros: * Mythbuntu 11.10 works out of the box (HDMI audio easy config)
* 720p content plays excellent
* Cost effective media center solution
* Quiet

Cons: * lighted circle around the Zotac logo. Can disable from the BIOS but power button illumination disabled also
* Front WIFI indicator is bright, no way to disable in BIOS (easy to blacklist WIFI driver in Linux or black electric tape works too)

Other Thoughts: Used this as a MythTV .24 frontend for bedroom connected via HDMI to Sony 1080 TV. Box is fast using VDPAU keep 4 CPUs very low playing 720 content.
HDD and memory easy to install. Also tried booting from SD card worked well.
Ethernet seems to take a while to establish a connection, could be cabling issue.

Pros: Good machine, works as advertised. Very quiet.

Cons: Can be difficult to get in and out of the base.

Other Thoughts: Forget about rebates from Zotac. I carefully registered online, submitted ALL required documents exactly as specified and they said it was invalid. Now waiting for response from customer service.

Pros: Everything was working well out of the box. Installed XBMC, extremely easy to get up and running.

Cons: Exactly 30 days in, the wired network card failed without any changes being made.

Even sitting in the bios screen, the link lights on the switch will go up and down every 2-3 seconds. I tried multiple switches and multiple cables - nothing worked. The only "work around" was to force 10mbps (and turn OFF autonegotiation).

I could at least switch to the on board wireless, except it can't reach 20ft away.

Other Thoughts: Everything looks good in theory, but the more I read, I think this hardware is just put together too cheaply. Weak (20ft) wireless range, dead components, frequent DOA's.. not a good track record.

It looks like I'm going to RMA to zotac (they require you to register with their site to RMA.. in case you .. might want to buy something else that breaks?)

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Scott,
I apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced with one of products. I recommend you review the web services available to you in the accompanying link.

External Link(s):

ZOTAC Web Services|

Pros: Once I got HDMI audio working (see below) this unit has proven to be a pretty good MythTV frontend. I have it hooked up to a 720p LCD and it seems to handle the load fine. VDPAU on the Nvidia Ion handles the graphics load nicely.

Cons: Could not get HDMI audio to work with Mythbuntu 10.04 or earlier, and had to jump through some hoops that are documented on the web to get everything going with 10.10.

ZOTAC does NOT seem to honor rebates!!!

Other Thoughts: I always buy a unit that includes a rebate with some trepidation, but thought I'd give Zotac a try anyway. I verified t hat I qualified, filled out the rebate material correctly, sent it all in promptly, and... nothing. That's been over 6 months ago. Vendors/manufacturers must realize that while rebates are a great vehicle to increase sales and profit -- most folks don't send them in -- but failure to fulfill rebates only serves to negatively impact their reputation and put a sizable dent in their sales overall. Much as I might be tempted, I, for one, will not buy another product from Zotac until I receive the promised $30 rebate. From what I've ready in other reviews, I'm not alone. At least for Zotac, it's a scam and a rip off.

Pros: Extremely small foot size, easy to set up and access internal components. It is extremely fast (under 5 sec) when accessing shares over the network and playing back media files (Using XBMC Live 10.1 Edition).

Cons: None worth mentioning.

Other Thoughts: It is a barebone system, so no HDD or RAM installed. I installed XBMC Live 10.1 and I've never used the wifi with the machine, but over ethernet I get gigabit speeds and there was no set up, just Plug-n-Play. A good machine, easy to install an OS on, recommended for anyone who needs a cheap HTPC.

Pros: Very small ( about the size of a router),very quiet,the price,other than changing the fan speed in the BIOS and installing the latest drivers no tweaking was really needed,Does an excellent job of streaming media including 1080P content using XBMC while using a gigabit connection.

Cons: ZBOX does run hot,I haven't tried the wireless (nor care to) but I understand the wireless card is awful, CPU and GPU are a bit on the weak side but thats to be expected since it's not a gaming graphics card.

Other Thoughts: Overall I'm really pleased with my purchase,If your expecting the ZBOX to be a full fleged ultimate HTPC look else where, but if your expecting ZBOX to be used to stream media or act as a file server you can't go wrong and especially not for $220. A tip if your using XBMC with ZBOX, try to find a compatible OS (Windows 7 or Ubuntu) and use harware accelerated. Google the directions on how to enable :)

Pros: * Everything worked out of the box using the most recent XBMC Live installer (10.1) with little to no tinkering.
* Installing the hard drive and memory is very simple
* Playsback 720P content without breaking a sweat. I don't have any 1080P content to try out but I don't anticipate it having any problems with it.
* The XBMC interface runs smoothly and free of any noticable lag

Cons: * Out of the box, there's a big lighted circle around the Zotac logo. You can disable this from the BIOS but then the power button illumination stops working right now - it stays red all the time instead of changing from red to white.
* The wifi and HD activity lights are way too bright
* Fairly cheap feeling plastic
* The built in wifi just plain sucks, and there's no easy to add an external antenna to it. If you plan on using this box with wifi I strongly suggest getting USB adapter.

Pros: Small form factor. Reasonably quiet operation (fit for HTPC). Lots of connectivity. Excellent power efficiency.

Cons: Currently writing this review on it as a desktop since it is not powerful enough to do play Netflix reliably (possibly a wireless bandwidth issue since the Explorer browser Netflix runs fine), but it certainly doesn't do Hulu well. Running Win 7 with Boxee app, Hulu app, and Netflix through WMC. I took it out of HTPC service and replaced it with a Boxee Box (much better HTPC for streaming content).

As a desktop PC it fails to browse well at 1920x1200. Most likely everything to blame for bottle-necked PCIe 1X Atom.

Poor WiFi connectivity and GPU bandwidth cripple what would otherwise be a great miniPC. Not recommended.

Other Thoughts: Considering how stable a PC it is, I plan to use it as an efficient file/media server with some flavor of Linux in the near future. I certainly will hard-wire it to the router since the WiFi is pretty weak.

I'm still interested in trying out other Zotac's with the AMD APU.

Note BIOS needed to be updated in order to be booted from USB stick. I don't know if they are now shipping with more updated BIOS.