So you want a mini PC, but with some power under its petite bonnet? The latest Zbox offering from Zotac is certainly worth checking out, then, as it boasts a Skylake processor for starters.
The Zbox MI551 is powered by a Core i5-6400T to be precise, which is a quad-core CPU clocked at 2.2GHz with Turbo boost up to 2.8GHz (cooled by a fan and heatsink). It comes with Intel HD Graphics 530 as its integrated graphics solution.
As Techspot reports, the MI551 has a bay for a 2.5-inch SSD or hard disk drive (supporting M.2 SATA SSD for extra nippiness). As for system memory, you get a pair of DDR3L-1600 SODIMM slots so you can chuck up to 16GB of RAM inside this machine.
Considering its size of 188 x 188 x 51mm, that's a pretty chunky specification which can be achieved.
And in terms of ports, this Zotac mini PC offers a pair of DisplayPorts and an HDMI port, and it also boasts one of the new USB 3.1 Type-C ports, backed up with a pair of standard USB 3.0 connections, and a single USB 2.0 port.
There are also two LAN ports, and for wireless connectivity you get Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi.
Throw in a 3-in-1 card reader (SD/SDHC/SDXC) along with that lot, and you get a VESA mounting kit so you can tuck this little box of tricks away behind your display, out of sight.
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Regarding the price and availability, Zotac has yet to announce anything on this front, but we should know soon enough. The price will certainly have an effect on how tempting this piece of hardware is, but going by the base spec, this is definitely an interesting prospect in the mini PC world.
Not that there isn't plenty of competition – there's been a definite rash of compact computers and dongle PCs in recent times.
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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for T3 across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel was published by Hachette UK in 2013).