Archive for March, 2011
Zotac sent me a demo unit of their brand new Zotac Zbox AD02 model. Now, Zotac has been making great nettops for a while, but the main difference with this particular unit, is that it’s powered by AMD’s brand new E-350 Brazos platform. AMD’s new chips have been getting great reviews, so we expect good things from this new dual core platfrom, running at 1.6ghz in this tiny nettop. For graphics processing power, AMD’s Brazos platform incorporates Radeon HD 6310 integrated graphics with support for DirectX 11
The unit that Zotac sent me is the ZBOX AD02 Plus. The ‘Pus’ on the end of the model name signifies that this model comes with 2gb of DDR3 (8gb Max) and a 250GB hard drive installed. The other model, AD02, comes as a barebones kit, so you can install your own RAM and HDD.
First impressions are that this is nicely built nettop, although it’s shiny exterior finish shows every fingerprint. Two docking systems are included, one that you can use to stand the unit up solo, and another that attaches to the back of your LCD monitor. The solo dock is a bit fiddly to install, but it’s fine once setup, and you’ll probably only do it once.
The AD02 Plus isn’t for sale yet, but you can currently pick up the Zbox ID40, which is the Intel equivalent for $232.87
Check out the rest of the unboxing pictures after the break, including a comparison with Lenovo’s Ideacentre nettop.
Deals of the day
Zotac ZBOX with Dual Core Intel Atom D510 1.66 GHz (Barebones) – Amazon
Lenovo Ideacentre Q150 Series w/Atom D510 and Nvidia Ion for $349.99 - Amazon
New Apple TV MC572LL/A for $94.99 – Amazon
Onkyo Japan has been working on a brand new Atom powered nettop called the DP315. It looks to pretty tiny, weighing in at just440grams and just 25mm thick. Powering this tiny pc is Intel’s N455 Atom processor with a clock speed of 1.66GHz in its basic configuration. There rest of the base spec is rounded out by 1GB of RAM, 160GB of HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium SP1. However, it can be built to order with higher specs. It’s currently only available in Japan, and sold at around 35,000 Yen in Japan
Onkyo Japan via Akihabara
Efika showed off a new Smartbook just the other day, and now they’re also introducing the ‘Smarttop’ – essentially a nettop that swaps the Intel Atom / AMD Fusion processor for an ARM sourced processor. And, as a result, it uses just 5 watts of power to fully operate. Instead of Windows, the Efika MX features an optimized Linux kernel and a distribution that is a derivative of Ubuntu Maverick (10.10). Perhaps best of all though, is the prices. You can buy the Efika Smarttop for just $129, directly from the manufacturer.
Check out the full specs after the break.
