Zotac Unveils The Palm-Sized ZBox nano HTPC

Posted 10/07/2011 at 1:07pm | by Brad Chacos

3

Comments

Print

Looking to get your movie watching on? Turn to Zotac. The company might not be at HP’s level in terms of sales, but when it comes to HTPCs, few companies deliver better small form factor results. The company’s ZBox line has been a go-to brand for video streaming enthusiasts, and now, there’s a new Zotac ZBox available that ditches Intel and AMD in favor of a VIA processor.

The Zotac ZBOX nano VD01 Series – which Zotac says can fit in the palm of your hand – actually sports two VIA processors: both the 1.2 GHz dual-core Nano X2 U4025 CPU and the VX900H media system processor join this HTPC party. There’s also an open DDR3 DIMM slot and space for a hard drive on the basic model; opting for the “Plus” rig fills those with 2GB of DDR3 RAM and a 320GB hard drive. Connectivity options abound, including Wi-Fi, two USB 3.0 slots, 2 USB 2.0 slots, an infrared media remote, outbound HDMI and DisplayPort ports, eSATA, a multicard reader and gigabit Ethernet. About the only thing missing is a digital optical port.

Zotac says the HTPC can "deliver silky-smooth playback of popular high-definition video formats, including Blu-ray, MPEG2, H.264, VC-1 and streaming Internet video." There are pages for each model up on the Zotac website, but both those and the company’s press release lacks any pricing or release date information.