Zotac CI320, any real life experience?

[Boomerang Rapido]

Hi,

Im considering the Zotac ZBOX CI320 as an HTPC.

Seeing as it now comes in a plus version including SSD, RAM and Windows 8.1 it seems like the perfect option for a small PC to connect to the TV.

I'm mainly going to be using it for streaming Netflix, HBO and possibly running XBMC.

Does anyone have any experience with this machine (apart from the reviews avaliable) ?

[Pappnaas]

Sry, i hav no experience with that one.

But nearly everthing on your list can be done by a WD TV box or even a raspberry pi, so you might get the same using less energy and you do not have to bother with Windows at all.

[Boomerang Rapido]

The thing is I like the idea of using Windows (and XBMC)

I looked into the WD TV Box and from what I can see there are certain local streaming providers which it cannot handle.

[Pappnaas]

Well, that is the main problem with "closed" boxes, if you happen to need a provider not contained, you are totally dependend on a software update by the manufacturer. And in most cases, those updates seem to be scarce.

The raspberry will certainly not run windows, but XMBC is available:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Raspberry_Pi

[CA_Steve]

I haven't played with one, but it looks interesting. Has a quad core Baytrail CPU, the N2830. Same CPU as in many recent Chromebooks. Here's a Tweaktown review that's fairly worthless except for power and temperature graphs. The lower speed dual core Haswell-based Celeron in the Asus Chromebook was reviewed at Anandtech…and while you can't compare on a 1-1 basis, the HD Graphics are very similar between the two and it had no problem running 1080p streamed content. There is a looong dual core Baytrail thread here, somewhere that would be useful for you to browse.

Over all, I think the Zotac Nano could be a nice solution for you. The offered SSD is a no-name..I'm not comfortable with that. If you have a useable Windows license on hand, go with the barebones and outfit it as you like.