Netbook Reviews

The first mainstream Nvidia Ion netbook to hit the market last year was the Acer Aspire Revo.

This year one of the first nettops to feature the new next generation Ion (aka Ion 2) is the Zotac ZBOX HD-ID11.

The Zotac ZBOX is a bare bone / DIY nettop, which means you will need to install your own hard drive, RAM and operating system to run on the nettop. This gives you more customization options, and allows you to install a fast large hard drive, quieter running drive or even a silent SSD.

The small nettop has the same form factor and roughly the same size as the Revo, and packs many outputs including HDMI and VGA (via adapter), 6x USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, S/PDIF, and eSATA.

Zotac Zbox

The next generation Nvidia Ion 2 graphics can handle 1080p HD videos along with Blu-ray playback, and would make an excellent compact media computer / HTPC.

You can now pickup your own ZBOX for just $249 from Newegg.

AnandTech have taken a look at the Zotac ZBOX HD-ID11 and say they found the new Ion graphics to be a little faster the the original Ion, obtaining better scores in the benchmark tests. They also said the build quality was better than expected, and didn’t feel cheap. They also said you can hear the fan running when the CPU is stressed, but it’s a very quiet nettop.