This quick article is my personnal review of my recently purchased Zotac MAG HD-NS01-U. Bear in mind I am not a professionnal product tester but rather an end of line comsumer.

In this article, I am going to go through everything that lead me to buy this device, why and how.

1. I'll start with long term costs and the main reason I baught this Zotac MAG,
2. The ordering - paying - shipping - receiving - unpacking,
3. Why not having an operating system is not a CON for this device,
4. Installing my OS of choice: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (long term support, not linux terminal server),
5. Installing XBMC,
6. Other software installation and wire plugging,
7. Pros and Cons,
8. General appreciation and conclusion.

Writing this review took some time anf effort. If you found this review usefull, you can tell me by

buying me Beer :-).

This is the main reason why I chose to buy this device to replace my Media Center in my living room. This device makes me save over 25$ CAD per month. Here is how: at the time of this writing, my electricity supplier charges me 0.074 cents per kilowatt/hour used.

My actual media center running during the day

Since my media center has a 450 Watts and is powered on a minimum of 12 hours a day (for music during the day and movies at night), it costs me 0.45 Kw/h per hour. This is 5.4 Kw/h per day. At an average 30.4 days a month, the cost is approximately 12.15$ CAD for 164 Kw/h.

My actual destop running during the night

Adding to this that I leave my desktop workstation powered on 24 hours a day... To work during the day and download and make calculations during the night. I could be turning it off for at least 10 hours when I am off duty. Doing the same calculations with this 750 Watt power supply PC, the cost is 0.75 Kw/h * 10 hours * 30.4 days per month * 0.074$ CAD per Kw/h is 16.87$ CAD per month.

Totalling both amounts comes up to 29.02$ CAD of MINIMAL direct electricity costs for power I already use.

Note: A gentleman by the name of Peter Chung wrote me saying, albeit he was right with the information I provided herein, that my calculations were erroneous. Here is an information complement that will help: my desktop cannot consume 100% of the 750 Watts provided by my PSU. And that part is true. The part I forgot to mention is that using a Kill-a-Watt device, I measured my average consumption at 87% of 750 Watt for my nightly tasks. Tasks that were transfered over to the Zotac MAG. The equivalent of my "night" job on my desktop takes about twice as long on the Zotac because of the CPU speed that is not as high as my desktop's. As I mentionned I am not sitting in front of my desktop 10 hours a day, which is an understatement, calculating 750 Watts at 100% for 10 hours is not that much of an error. I would rather consider it rounding numbers "on the safe side".

My Zotac replacing those 2 usage

The Zotac is rated at 65 Watts. So it's 0.065 Kw/h * 24 hours * 30.4 days a month * 0.074$ CAD per Kw/h of electrical cost = 3.51$ CAD for leaving this Zotac MAG turned on 24 hours a day to replace my past "computer habits".

The cost rundown

29.02$ - 3.51$ = 25.51$ CAD of economy each month!!! Isn't this a blast? At the price I paid my Zotac MAG, my return on investment is below 11 months.

The REAL cost rundown

Considering I sold my ex media center for a certain amount, my real return on investment is below 3 months.

I baught this device at NCIX. I payd via credit card. It got shipped in the usual delays I am used to with NCIX. I received it on the very last day that it was supposed to be delivered to me. They said 2-8 days. Counting the weekends and the 2 national holidays we have here in Québec on june 24th and july 1st, it took an eternity to get to the 8th day.

Unpacking the product was harder then I expected. The box is sturdy and rigid. In order to get the device out of the box without ripping it appart, I had to use a screwdriver to unhook the cardoard tabs and pry open the box. This being out of the way, I was confirmed what I expected: the device is really well packaged and protected. Weighting an 8th of a ton, I doubt I could stand upright on the box. My wife could stand upright on it (after I removed the Zotac from within of course). Worry not: Purolator will have a hard time breaking the content of this box.

You need to keep in mind I am buying this computer to play music, watch movies and download using Filezilla at night. So to me, buying Windows "included" in the price is not something I wish. Being linux savvy and having the ability to install linux from a USB key allowed me to save money not tipping Bill Gates for any of his bugy operating system (my opinion).

While I have seen here and there you can install almost any flavor of Windows on this device, I didn't even try it. It must be feasable since the manufacturer and a few customers claim they could.

That is the simple part. Using a 1 Gb USB stick, I saved myself the trouble of finding and pluging an external CDRom drive (or the like) to install from disk.

Here is how I got about installing Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on my Zotac:

1. Using Unetbootin, I copied Ubuntu on my USB stick,
2. I acessed the Zotac's BIOS to ask to boot from my USB stick,
3. Ubuntu Live booted right away,
4. I clicked the "install to hard disk" icon on the desktop, answered a few questions and rebooted,
5. I clicked on my wireless network, gave it my network's password,
6. Updated my whole system to the latest version using Ubuntu's update manager.

Voilà! It was as simple as that. No lies or omissions. The setup was really that simple. No bug! No Hang! No nothing!

The whole process took about 3 hours total with approximately 20 minutes of my time. I was away while Unetbootin downloaded and copied Ubuntu on my stick... I was also away while Ubuntu installed itself... While it updated itself...

20 minutes to install an operating system is, to me, a "pro" taking into account that is under the minimal amount of time you need to take answering questions to install Windows.

That was also a simple part. In a console shell, I executed these 3 commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install xbmc

Was that simple enough? To me it was. But... There is always a but... Don't forget to export your library (or copy-paste your profile) in respect of XBMC's procedures for moving a profile around.

When I started XBMC, everything was the way it was supposed to be... An identical copy of my Windows 7 Media Center this Linux box is replacing. Nothing is never THAT simple with Windows.

Using Synaptic package manager, I installed Filezilla. No "browse here" and "download that" for this or that version of Windows, 32 or 64 bits... Did I mention nothing is never THAT simple with Windows.

I hunted around the house for my wireless keyboard/mouse combo. Nothing extraordinary here but I needed to mention it because my wife had packed them with the christmas decorations. So it took more time to find these then to actually install and configure the whole box.

Pros

• Cheaper then it's desktop equivalent for same power and performance,
• Small footprint,
• Lightweight,
• Cost efficient,
• Sleek design,
• Pleasently silent compared to my old 450 Watt Windows box (see cons as well),
• No operating system,
• Music and video is what is expected for the Nvidia ION GPU - without any surprises,
• eSata port included,
• Short R.O.I. (return on investment),
• More then excellent C.O.O. (cost of ownership),
• Removed the hum in my LCD TV speakers my old PSU was causing.

Cons

• No PS2 for keyboard. Plan a USB one,
• A little louder then I expected it to be under heavy load and hot summer weather. Noise is concealable by using the Vesa mount to hook it behind the TV, thus, projecting the sound towards the wall,
• The power button is hard to reach if mounted on the back of a large LCD TV. The device is rather small in comparison to the TV when hooked in it's center with the Vesa support. You'll need a long arm to cross almost half of your TV to reach it,
• The wireless network card antenna is in the box - making it loose a little of signal strength in comparison with my Windows box at the exact same place WITH an antenna,
• Very hard to assemble foot stand if you don't hang it behind the TV. But that is a minor con since you do it only one time in the device's life,
• Running hot when CPU is stressed (within acceptable limits, but still hot),
• HDD activity LED way too bright for one to watch a movie in the dark with the device directly gacing us,
• Using a wired network connection, the flashing of the light reflecting on the wall in a dark environment is annoying. This is minor since it's possible to orient the box in another fashion, use a small piece of black tape or a drop of liquid paper to conceal the flashing light,
• Same as above for wireless light up front.

I already have recommended the Zotac MAG HD-NS01-U to two person at the time of this writing. I received the device yesterday afternoon. I have loved it with all its flaws since the second I powered it on. So does my wife. For the price, I would qualify my purchase being of "fair value". It could have come bundled with a GNU Linux distribution bundled. Even if it would have required a little more manipulation while assembling the device, it would have been worth it. I would gladly have paid 5$ more to get it with Ubuntu pre-installed. Thus saving me the afternoon to wait for it's install. Companies selling lots and lots of HDD's to manufacturers such as Zotac do not charge that much more for dumping a preconfigured image on their drives.

I definetly will buy one for my mother to rid her of all her "passed date and expired" AV equipments in her lounge, when finances permit. For the cost saving while I am not requiring my "monster of a desktop" like for gaming applications, I will consider buying another one to save some more money monthly in my utility bill.

2 of these will end up saving me ±34$ CAD a month on my electrical bill. Did you carefully read my 1st "pros" point?

Byuing a Zotac MAG HD-NS01-U is an investment towards your well being. That is my opinion.

Remember you can

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