In short the Inspiron Zino HD is a small PC that packs quite a punch in an 8” by 8” square. And the best part is that it’ll make an awesome device to have in your living room. So what does the Zino HD come with?

Well for starters, it comes with tons of customization options on the Hardware configuration just as you’d expect otherwise from Dell. The base model starts at 299$ and here is what the PC comes with (or can be configured with)

• It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit or Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.
• You can customize the PC with 7 solid colors.
• You can customize the PC with 3 designs.
• The Inspiron Zino HD uses AMD’s Athlon processor (single or dual core).
• The base configuration is 3GB of RAM, but can be configured with 4, 6, and 8GB of RAM with 8GB being the max.
• Storage shouldn’t be a problem with your choice of 500GB, 640GB, 750GB, or 1TB 7200rpm SATA hard drives.
• You can choose either a DVD +/- RW drive or Blu-ray drive.
• For graphics, you can choose either an integrated ATI Radeon HD3200 or discrete ATI Radeon HD 4330 with 512MB of dedicated memory.
• It has HDMI and VGA ports.
• A 4-in-1 media card reader and integrated gigabit Ethernet are both standard.
• It has integrated 2.1 High Definition audio with the choice of going with a Sound Blaster X-Fi High Definition audio from Creative.
• For your wireless needs, you can choose either a Dell 1397 802.11 b/g wireless card or Dell 1520 802.11 b/g/n wireless card.

What Makes the Inspiron Zino HD the best choice for a Home Media Center?

• Extremely good storage options.
• Connectivity through HDMI will allow you to connect to HDTV.
• Good expandable options, so you can easily connect a TV Tuner card, to record TV.

And with the upcoming Boxee for Windows which will be on the same level as Boxee for Mac/Linux in the coming few months. However the upcoming Boxee box is also something I’m looking forward to.

But the Inspiron Zino HD is just too irresistible for my tastes and would love to own one of these cute PC’s to have in my living room. Wish Dell just had a nice little remote to give like the Apple Remote!

For more of Dell Inspiron Zino HD, have a look at this picture stream on Flickr.

For long I’ve always felt that Mac’s were super sexy and did extremely well in the looks department of a computer. There’s this self attracting charm of the Mac’s that pulls in the crowds wherever you take it. Looks like Dell is aiming to do something similar with its Studio Hybrid Desktops.

Dell claims that the Studio Hybrid desktops are the most power efficient desktops in the market today and it Uses about 70% less power than a typical desktop, and it meets Energy Star 4.0 standards with an 87% efficient power supply. Well done Dell!

The major selling point about the new Studio Hybrid’s is that they are extremely environmental friendly. Here’s what Dell has to say, “Studio Hybrid packaging is made from 95% recyclable materials. And the Studio Hybrid comes with a system-recycling kit, so you can help preserve and protect the environment”.

Going by its looks you might feel that it is severely underpowered just like the Mac Mini. But it isn’t the case. The base model that retails for 499$ (without monitor) and for 699$ (with monitor) comes in the following configuration :

• Intel Pentium Dual Core (1.86 GHz)
• 8X Slot Load CD / DVD Burner
• 1GB RAM (DDR2 , 667MHz)
• 160GB Hard disk (5400RPM)
• Integrated Graphics (GMA X3100)

The Studio Hybrid’s suffer from weak 3D performance due to the system’s integrated graphics, but if you don’t need to play 3D games, the Studio Hybrid is a good alternative to the boxy mainstream PC’s that have dominated the market since the dawn of personal computing. 

Personalization is an added benefit,  several acrylic shell colors are available including Topaz and Ruby, the system can also be wrapped in a bamboo finish and changed on the fly through a swappable sleeve. The design can either sit horizontally on a desk or upright by using a special stand.

The higher end Hybrid’s are just as good as the modern day towers with Core 2 Duo Processors and upto a maximum of 4GB of RAM.

Looking at all this, I feel that Dell has a winner at its hands. It beats the Mac Mini hands down with option of a Blu-ray drive for HD video, HDMI video out, an 8-in-1 card reader and the choice of a TV tuner.

With the impending refresh of the Mac line, we have to wait and watch for what Apple comes up with. I’d want the Mac Mini compete heads on with the Studio Hybrid. At the moment though it is the Hybrid’s winning the battle.

If only Hybrid’s ran Mac OSX, it would be the best small factor PC/Mac out there suitable for a small home theatre in your living room.

Nice industrial design from Dell. The bamboo model looks particularly nice. What are your thoughts on the Studio Hybrids?

Which do you feel is the better? Is the Mac dude better than the Uncool PC Guy? Sound off your opinions..

Let the war of the fanboi’s begin

cartoon credit: ageekstoty

Share more videos and cartoons in the comments. I will update the post with more of them in the future.

Meanwhile my personal favorite is the Mac. Doesn’t mean I’m Gay Alright!!

The future of computing is here. First we saw the iPhone that took Touch sensitive Mobile Phones to the masses and revolutionized the world of Mobile communication. The area of Multi touch devices is fast developing and the Microsoft Surface PC that was launched sometime back in retail AT&T Stores is just another example, how fascinating multi touch really is.

I’ve been looking for photos of Microsoft Surface in action and thanks Long Zheng I found this Flickr Set uploaded by a Microsoft Employee Jean-Luc David containing photos of applications running on Surface.

So here are a few of my favorites. For more have a look at this Flickr Set.

Rockpool Water-Ripple Demo, Pretty Cool eh!

The photo application now with support for categories and labels.

Virtual Earth on the Surface.

A puzzle game called ScatterPuzzle. Nice way to Kill time.   

Ghosts, an adoption of a puzzle game where the objective is to move objects so lines do not cross each other.

The music player. Neat Implementation IMHO!

A Cool Looking Visualization.

Surely Microsoft seems to be doing an amazing job with Microsoft Surface. Who knew you could have so much fun over a coffee table?

Update : 2 : If you are looking for a guide to Dual Boot Windows Vista and Mac OSX Leopard, please follow this guide Hack Attack : Dual Boot Leopard and Windows Vista. The Dual Boot Guide is a comprehensive guide and it should work for most of you with a little bit of hard work.

Update : 1 : There is a newer version of this Hack that you might want to check out. Its much more simpler and can be done by almost everyone. The newer hack also includes Mac OSX 10.5.1 so please check out Hack Attack : Install Leopard On your PC in Just One Step.

Well its been only a day since the Mac OSX Leopard was released officially by Apple and the hackers have managed to create a patched DVD that everyone like you and me can use to install Leopard on PC’s without having to buy a Mac. Please note the tutorial that I am going to post is still experimental and things might not work the right way simply because it is still early days in hacking Leopard to work on PC’s. Well if you don’t mind your PC getting screwed then go ahead and try out this tutorial.

Make sure you backup all important data before you proceed. Here are the things that you will need before Install Leopard on your PC…

• The Patched DVD Image
• The zip file containing the patch
• One pen drive or USB Flash Drive formatted as FAT32

Well once you have all these you can go ahead and Install Leopard..

Step 1. Getting things ready  

• Burn the DVD Image onto a Single Layer DVD-R using a software like Nero.
• Format the USB Flash Drive and the drive label should be “Patcher” without the quotes. Please note it has to be “Patcher” only and nothing else for the patch to work when we apply it later.
• Extract the Zip file and put its contents into the USB Flash Drive.
• Now your USB Drive should contain a folder called “files”, if it doesn’t then check to see where you have gone wrong.

Step 2. Installing Leopard

• Now that you have the Patched DVD with you, you can now install Leopard. Pop in the DVD into the drive and boot into it by pressing F12 at the BIOS Prompt.
• Boot into the DVD and the installer should now load. It take a while though, so be patient.
• Select your Language and make sure you select Customize and you need to deselect all the packages that are displayed.
• Leopard will now install. This can take a while, so go grab yourself a coffee.
• It will ask you to Reboot, so go ahead and Reboot. Before rebooting make sure that USB Flash Drive is connected to the PC.

Step 3. Patching Leopard

• Now that you have got Leopard installed, you need to patch it. Before we do that Boot into the Leopard DVD like the way you did before.
• Wait for the Darwin Bootloader to load. Once it loads up press F8. You should now see a prompt. Type -s and hit enter. The DVD will now load in Verbose mode. Watch for any errors. It should load without a problem because you have already installed Leopard.
• Once the setup is loaded select your Language. Once done you should now be seeing the Welcome Screen. Once there navigate to Utilities-Terminal.
• Once the terminal loads up, you now need to browse to your USB Drive, so follow the steps below, typing it exactly as it appears below in the Terminal.

  In the command line type the following as they appear here

  cd ..
  cd ..
  cd Volumes
  cd Patcher
  cd files

  Notice the space between cd and the 2 dots.

• Now its the time to run the patcher to make sure Leopard will work on your PC. Type the following into the Terminal.

  ./9a581PostPatch.sh

• The Patch should now run. You can answer Yes while removing the ACPUPowerManagement.kext
• After the Script is done, you should now be able to Boot into Leopard after you restart.

Step 4. Congratulations! You’ve done the Impossible!

Well that was it. Please note this has not been extensively tested, so most of your Hardware like Sound, Network may not work. If something goes wrong for you or you want to help us, then please join the discussion over at OSX86Scene. If you noticed I haven’t posted the links to the Torrent that contains the DVD image and the zip. Well I haven’t posted them because I am sure the lawyers over at Apple are going to sue the hell out of me. If you wondering where you can find them, then head over to Demonoid and search for it.

Well here are few screenshots by Mac.nub over at the forums who could get Leopard working on his system.

Some Updates and Clarifications :

• This Hack works on Intel PC’s with atleast SSE3
• You need to format your Leopard Partition to HFS+
• Make Sure you install Leopard on MBR and not GUID or it won’t boot.
• More Patched DVD’s from Uphuck, Netkas is in the works so it would be better if you wait for the polished releases to come out.