Zotac ZBOX Blu-ray Series ZBOXHD-ID33BR-U Intel NM10 Mini / Booksize Barebone System

Pros: nice quiet little machine, runs ubuntu well, zotac sent the rebate in less than a week.

Cons: none so far

Pros: Price - $149 after rebate Works well with XBMC on OpenElec. Boot time into XBMC is 35 seconds, much faster than my Windows or Ubuntu builds of XBMC.

Cons: Slow wired and wireless speeds. Wireless is slower than G and wired speeds do not even approach older 100Mb cards. Uses DDR2 instead of DDR3 so the memory is more expensive. Build quality is questionable... one of the screws for the drive bracket was not machined properly and it took .5 hours to remove the screw. Will not work with 12.5mm drives. Does not include IR. No bluetooth.

Overall Review: This machine is working great as an HTPC with XBMC and OpenElec/nightly Eden builds. Menu response is quick and it has handled every 720p and 1080p video I have thrown at it. If you are looking for a simple HTPC this is a good buy if you do not depend on the included wireless. If wired/wireless was not so anemic, I would give this 5 eggs at the $149 price.

Pros: good form factor, almost everything as HTPC, no IR receiver

Cons: HDMI video not working for first unit; need RMA to replace unit. HDMI video for second unit worked for 2 days which allowed me to install Windows 7 64-bit, 4GB RAM and 60GB SSD. After that HDMI failed again, cannot POST using HDMI. I switched to DVI video output, everything works fine; probably need RMA with Zotac.

Pros: Great form factor and good performance. I have this hooked up to a 46" HDTV and it works very well. It's silent and is running XBMC and Ubuntu 11.10 without a hitch.

Cons: Poor quality case. I removed the back to install the memory and hard drive, when I reinstalled the back only 5/6 screws were holding fast. I removed the back to find one of the plastic tabs that accept the screws was broken off. I reinstalled the back and only 3/6 screws are holding. It cannot be wall mounted because the back of the unit is what attaches to the bracket. RMA or live with it... probably live with it but still annoying.

Overall Review: Other than the case, no real issues. Got this on sale with gift card and a rebate.

Pros: See previous review

Cons: eSATA port is malfunctioning and ZOTAC are not responding to any call for assistance. Knocked off an egg for the failed port and an egg for the lack of response.

Overall Review: I searched online for a solution to this issue and it turns out that I'm not alone. Seem to be a common problem. Come on ZOTAC, step up and stand by your product.

Pros: Price was good Got it for 209 with 30$ mail in and a free 64gb SSD Size is good mounted it to the back of my TV so its hidden and runs cool and quite. System was not plastic like others have stated.

Cons: Flash playback is choppy because the ION is not taking the Offload for some sites Youtube is fine Hulu is no ABC is not so lucky for me I don't care so much about that Sliver light / Netflix seems ok at times I can see a stutter but its rare...

Overall Review: I am going to disable Hyper threading and see if that helps with any thing.

Pros: NICE looking unit. Set up was very easy. If you set it up right you will only have 2 cables coming out of the unit. Looks great mounted on the wall.

Cons: Not the highest speed processor. Do not use for resource hungry applications. The blue ring light is annoying if you are putting the system in Stand By mode. It can be disabled.

Overall Review: Wi-Fi is decent....N-Band and internal bluetooth would have been nice. I mounted mine in the vertical rather then horizontal fashion. Took some "engineering" to balance it out so it wouldn't come off the mounts.

Pros: Slick form factor and small size Built-in Blu-Ray player nVidia ION Ability to turn off blue LED ring in BIOS Built-in 2.4 GHz WIFI N Extra miniPCIe slot

Cons: Anemic processing power Flaky USB 3.0 drivers No Bluetooth or infrared No operating system Slow Blu-Ray player No Flash or Silverlight playback No so silent when playing DVDs

Overall Review: I thought this was going to be the perfect piece of hardware to build a Windows Media Center PC. I wanted something that looked and worked like audio visual equipment, not like a computer. I set it up with 4GB of RAM, a 2.5" WD 500 GB drive, USB infrared remote, and USB Bluetooth adapter for MS Windows Media keyboard and mouse, and Windows 7 Home Premium in 64-bit. The first problem I found was with the USB 3 ports, the drivers are flaky. The Zotac could play Blu-Ray almost perfectly using Arcsoft TMT 5, but Blu-Ray playback got disabled many times with "non HDCP compliant hardware" errors. The Blu-Ray player also takes quite a bit of time to load a movie. Playback of Flash or Silverlight streams is very jerky; there is not enough CPU power to handle it. I ended up returning this Zotac and getting a Dell Zino HD from Costco for about the same price. The Dell came with Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit, wireless keyboard and mouse, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB hard drive, and dual band wireless N.