Zotac MAG Mini PC Review
The NVIDIA ION platform has done a great thing for the Atom CPU. While most nuclear-platforms based on the Intel 945G chipset, you can surf the Web or creating documents, NVIDIA brings decent multi-media performance on the table. Although on a small 10″ screen from a netbook, which now no longer be so attractive, it has certainly opened a new door for the very small form factor PCs, and we are now looking at a BFG MAG.
Packed neatly large box is a notebook, the MSI MAG bundled with an AC adapter, so offers a VESA, a vertical stand, a driver CD and a manual quick-start/specs. Shows the VESA mount, the MAG on the back of a LCD/Plasma screen to hide them completely, but we would suggest keeping this very nice looking device with its vertical stand will be.
Measuring only 7.32″ x 7.44″ x 1.5″ MAG is looking for a slim PC with colored in black and gray with a big orange O lights up in the middle (the MSI) occur. If you’ve seen the Acer Revo, then think of the MAG as a better looking sibling, which was separated at birth.
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On the front you have audio input and output ports, a memory card reader, USB port and power button with LEDs for power and HDD. There is an additional USB port on the top of the device while the rear has four more USB ports, one eSATA port, HDMI and D-SUB output, gigabit network jack, optical audio output and the socket. Internally, this MAG with a dual-core Atom 330 CPU (single-core version is also available but not recommended), equipped 2GB RAM and a 160GB hard drive was (both are upgradeable.) Wi-Fi is also installed, but IR is unfortunately missing which could be quite useful if you are very well informed of MAG as a HTPC (Home Theater PC) are planning and that’s what we did.
With the HDMI, and TOSLINK ports, I connected my Onkyo receiver MAG. The small size of MAG allows me to position it right next to the TV without it looking odd. I installed XBMC 9.11 and to review the latest Boxee Beta, the performance on the MAG. While Boxee great work pushing out 1080p video without problems, has yet to take advantage of GPU XMBC off-loading videos build a stable. A nightly build is available but I did not play around with. The interface for Boxee went pretty smoothly even with uTorrent running with Skype and its web interface in the background.
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The following results from PassMark ASRock ION compared to 330 mini-PC. The ASRock has a faster and higher capacity hard drive that should be easy to replace. 3D performance was the same on these machines, when identical drivers and operating system is used.
Total MAG is an excellent option if you plan on using it as a HTPC. It can be for daily use as an office PC, but I would prefer to connect to my TV. I want an optical drive built in it, and yes, while that would probably increase, its thickness, it would also increase its functionality. Lack of integrated IR-is not that big deal as you can easily USB-based receivers that work quite well. Should be very good at price, Mag definitely the direction you want to, when a HTPC should be on your mind will be investigated.
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