Review: Niveus Zone Pro One-Ups The Zone
The Niveus Zone was good, bringing an HD HTPC to your living room in a compact box, but the Zone Pro is three times the speed of the old one. And it shows.
Here are the specs: 1080p, Blu-ray drive, HDMI 1.3, eSATA, Core 2 Duo, Gigabit Ethernet and a $US2000 price tag. It lands in a strange spot between performance and “HTPC-ability”, as in the ability to sit nicely on your home entertainment centre without standing out too much.
We tested it ourselves, and found it was a very capable Windows Vista Media centre, doing all the Media centre tasks (streaming network content, Netflix, watching Blu-rays, what have you) as larger machines we’ve tested. (We haven’t tested the previous Zone, so we can’t compare it to that.)
Despite its small size, it is capable of supporting one Media centre extender, such as an Xbox 360, so you can watch the same show on your 360 as you can on your Zone. This, provided you add the third-party TV tuners. We’re going to test how well that performs in the coming weeks.
There are still some tests other than that to run as well, including actually using it as a Media centre for an extended period of time, plus putting Windows 7 on there, but for the most part this is a quality compact HTPC. It’s a little pricey, but Niveus has previously lived in the enthusiast (read: rich man) market, so the Zone and the Zone Pro are their way of bringing their home theatre experience down to the slightly well off man’s market. [Niveus]
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
wtf- I could build the exact same thing in the exact same form factor for under $800...
COCOViper
2k is more than a little pricey for an htpc. It's almost ridiculous.
Why not just get a PS3 it the same thing.
But much much cheaper
This is not exactly a "review", more like a "yeah it exists and it turned on". How loud is it?
astrocramp
WTF is wrong with having a full size server chassis sitting next to your TV? or even putting your TV on top of your server chassis.
tenazrael
@tacomstng: Indeed. If I wanted pewpew in my room I'd play Galaga.
@tok3ninja: I use the same trick on my wireless router and modem in my bedroom. Those little LEDs don't look very bright until you turn the lights off and try to go to sleep!
tacomstng
That looks much sexier than my zotac ion build but cost roughly 14 times more than my HD capable zotac ion build. I can add a $59 blu ray drive and still have it be 13 times cheaper. It's an atom vs a core 2 duo, but for video they both will play the same 1080p content the same.
Why does everything look like a GB advance sp lately?
Russell Lynn
Popcorn Hour C-200 came out today .. Whooooo
How many manufacturers are going to put out machines in this same exact case? Does everyone realize you can buy this PC for 1/3 the price through AOPEN?
[usa.aopen.com]
dMek
That blue light on the front looks like it would get really obnoxious during a movie. Nothing a piece of tape can't fix.