I own this ZBOX for several months and am still thrilled. The unit is very quiet and is not supernatural warm. The USB ports 2 and 3, eSATA, LAN and HDMI are perfectly adequate for me. To install an operating system, I have an external DVD drive from LG connected which was recognized without problems. Even with a USB flash drive to the front there were no problems. However, one must say that despite setting the boot order in the BIOS is ignored. Booting from DVD or USB flash drive must be manually controlled by the DEL key. The operating system I have Windows 7 installed with Media Center and must say for the device is not really suitable. It all works without problems. All hardware is detected without any problems and it works fairly smoothly. But at the speed of a desktop PC, it does not come close. During operation of the media center, the weaknesses show. It benötig too long to film libraries read. What has also to do with the software itself. The is easy to Resourcenhunrig. HD movies at 1080p can be played smoothly. After playing Win7 requires almost two to five minutes to get back to its operating cash. That makes it really not fun. The manufacturer recommends on his side the use of XBMC Live or OpenELEC. Both of which are based on Linux and can be installed without additional operating system. First of all I OpenELEC installed and was impressed by the speed. However, this version of XBMC is relatively new and has so its flaws during hardware detection. Now I use XBMC Live and have to say that this Media Center really worked great. It's great to 70MB and can be used as LiveDVD or installed on HDD. Installation is simple and the hardware is detected up to WLAN without problems. But wireless does not seem to be enabled by default. This must be set manually. The ZBOX starts quickly with XBMC and is very fluid in the operation. HD movies with 1080p are not an issue and then XBMC is liquid-use bar.
The ZBOX is connected to the AV receiver Onkyo HT-R960 with me via HDMI. To operate the ZBOX / XBMC I am using the diNovo Mini keyboard from Logitech.
