no kidding here guys i legitimately laughed out loud when i first opened up
the box for the z box pico from zotac i mean not a throaty you know
that might have attracted some unwanted attention in the office but definitely a
chuckle i just couldn't believe that they got a whole computer into
this
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so this is the zbox pico it features a quad core 22 nanometer Intel atom
z3735f that runs at a nominal frequency of 1.33 gigahertz but can turbo boost up
to 1.83 gigahertz it's got 2 gigs of starter ddr3 low power memory running in
a single channel config Intel hd graphics built in wireless and bluetooth
and a 32 gig emmc SSD that can be
expanded with the built-in microsdxc reader for storage moving along the
outside of the unit aside from that card reader you'll find a power button that
lights up the top with a very pleasing zotac logo a 100 Ethernet port two usb 2
ports and a headphone jack and then finally an HDMI port another
usb 2 port and power in overall i'm mostly pleased with the
specs it's obviously not the most powerful pc in the world but you get a
full x86 computer in an enclosure the size of a couple of stacked smartphones
and io is okay you get a surprising number of ports considering the size of
the unit but usb 3 and gigabit lan would have been nice to have and a microphone
input is in my mind a must-have considering this baby's power efficiency
and included vasa compatible mount just screams use me as a basic pc for mum to
use for skype and whatnot a usb headset
is an option but it will add more cost to this basic setup that could have been
better spent on a more powerful pc if we were going to spend more money on it
anyway on the other hand that more powerful pc
might be significantly more expensive than the zotac zbox pico because this is
by far the least costly computer i've
ever touched that comes pre-loaded with a fully licensed copy of Windows 8.1
don't let the with bing bit scare you away either all it means
is that bing is the default search engine something you can easily change
on your own in two seconds other than that it's the real deal full Windows 8.1
experience unreal you'll have about 18 gigs of space free on the boot drive
once you set up Windows install some alternative browsers and whatnot so the
first thing i decided to do of course was use up some of that space by
installing 3dmark i mean it's all well and good if zotac crammed the hardware
in there but especially given that this baby is passively cooled by a little
strip of aluminum around the outside i wanted to see what kind of temperatures
we'd see on that heatsink if we started pushing it
not bad i mean the outer housing we measured it with our ir thermometer
really didn't get that hot and even more impressively at the wall
that's all the power draw we got i mean i guess i should have seen the
efficiency coming when i noticed that the included power brick is a tiny and b
only rated at 5 volts 3 amps or a total of 15 watts
but i guess if you've made it this far in the video and you're kind of suitably
impressed by all of that you might be sitting there nodding along going oh
yeah Linus that's cool or whatever um i suspect there's also a good chance that
you're sitting there asking yourself well hold on a second who the heck is this product actually made for to which
i would answer great question zotac has pictures of business people slipping
them into their pockets but i think the idea of you know jane businesswoman
abandoning her laptop to carry a pc in her purse that while tiny on its own
also needs to be accompanied by a battery input devices and a display to
make it even somewhat useful is sorry zotac frankly ridiculous but that
doesn't mean it's useless either though a couple much more likely uses for a
silent compact inexpensive pc that comes pre-loaded with what would normally be a
hundred dollar os on its own would be a a basic pc for our family member who
doesn't need a powerful computer or a media pc box now
arguably a chromecast or Android stick of some sort would make more sense for
most media streaming applications but one key feature that those are missing
is steam in-home streaming support with the built-in h.264 decoder and a gaming
pc somewhere else in the house you can stream games to yourself check out this
video for a more in-depth look at steam and home streaming it's a really cool
technology and i think that even though this picot dropped too many frames for
me to really recommend buying it for this purpose today a hypothetical pico 2
should be able to handle this kind of streaming really well and i'm excited
for the future speaking of streaming by the way guys if you aren't satisfied
with being tied to your computer or tv to watch your favorite network tv shows
then hulu plus is our sponsor for today
and they could be the service for you hulu plus is the only streaming service
that gives you access to new currencies and episodes of shows like american dad
and bob's burgers through your smartphone tablet roku chromecast or
pretty much any device you already own you also get access to every season of
shows like community and parks and recreation as well as kids shows and
hundreds of criterion movies their service is reasonably priced at only
7.99 a month but they have a special offer going on for Linus tech tips
viewers or honestly really anyone else who does hulu plus sponsorship spots so
you know you could use someone else's but we'd really appreciate if you are it's crazy you get two weeks free
instead of just the one week trial that they offer to people normally so guys
when you go to sign up for hulu plus be sure to use our link that's huluplus.com
Linus to let them know that we sent you and get in on the special extended trial
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