Zotac Zbox HD-ID40-U review

There are six USB ports for adding peripherals: four on the back, one on the front and one on the top. There’s also a memory card reader with support for all the common types of smaller cards; and an eSATA port for adding fast external drives. HDMI and DVI-I ports mean you can run two monitors, and a simple adaptor will let you use a single monitor with VGA-only input. A Gigabit Ethernet port is present for fast file transfers. As with most mini PCs, the Zbox also has built-in 802.11n wireless networking.

You can output audio via the stereo line out, which is positioned on the front, making using it a little messy; on the rear is an optical S/PDIF. Alternatively, you can use the HDMI port, which can output 7.1 lossless PCM audio. The Zbox doesn’t support HD audio bitstreams such as Dolby True HD directly from a Blu-ray movie; and its 1.3 specification means it isn’t suitable for 3D video either.

Video playback, even of high bit-rate HD files, was flawless thanks to the built-in Nvidia Ion graphics chip. It’s not up to playing recent 3D games however, scoring just 6.9fps in our Call of Duty 4 test, and failing to reach playable frame rates even at 1,360×768 with anti-aliasing disabled – simply put, the Zbox is no Xbox.