14 DAY TRIAL // Mainstream desktop PCs usually come packaged in a mid-tower or mini-tower case, but there's the occasional mini PC with awesome hardware too and, even the occasional computer with a positively uncanny shape. Zotac has just launched one of them.
And by “one of them” I mean a computer that looks odd enough to make one think it's really a speaker of some kind, or perhaps a particularly peculiar piece of personalized peripheral paraphernalia.
Nevertheless, the Zotac ZBOX Sphere OI520 that you see in that picture up there, and the one below, is a full-fledged computer. It's just really, really small, as well as round.
If it didn't need to somehow stay in place on a desk or table, there wouldn't have even been a need for that “outgrowth” there, but a stand had to be included in the design somehow.
Anyway, despite its size and shape, the Zotac ZBOX Sphere OI520 is a perfectly capable mid-range desktop, or at least a mini PC that has the abilities of one.
Normally, it would have taken a micro-ATX motherboard and a rectangular chassis with a modicum of expansion options and drive bays to combine everything found in it, but Zotac managed to make things small.
So yes, that ball you see really does have an Intel Core i5 CPU inside of it, and Intel Core i5 4200U processor with Intel HD Graphics 4400 integrated graphics in fact.
It's a dual-core with a core frequency of 1.6 GHz (2.6 GHz in Turbo Boost mode) and 3 MB of cache memory.
4 GB of DDR3 memory back the chip up, while data is stored on an HDD (hard disk drive) of 500 GB. There is no optical drive to load files, but USB 3.0 technology (four ports), USB 2.0 (two ports) and network connections (Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac Wi-Fi & Bluetooth 4.0) should be more than enough to load and download files to and from it. A memory card reader is included as well.
Do keep in mind, though, that only the Zotac ZBOX Sphere OI520 Series PLUS models have pre-installed memory and storage though. The normal ones only have the 2.5-inch drive bay and the pair of DDR3L SO-DIMM slots.
Finally, by adding an mSATA SSD to the mix, you can use Intel Smart Response Technology to have it and the HDD be seen as a single device by the system, significantly boosting storage speed and access times when launching applications. Before you ask, no, the price wasn't specified anywhere.
