[douger]

Good Morning

I am keen to replace a crappy media player with a pc running XBMC. I am however keen to get a machine that can run XBMC within Windows as I want to be able to download stuff and also remote connect to the machine without having to dual boot in and out of XMBC? I also wanna be able to play large mkv etc

I see a lot of people with the Revo and they boot into just xbmc so I am wondering is this what most people do?

Am looking at the Dell Zino but again would love some advice?

[watzen]

I'm using a setup in my kitchen with a ASrock 330HT which is a DualCore ION Setup. On this system I run Windows 7 with XBMC, it works perfectly. I however don't use it that much other then the occasional surfing.
I don't think it would have any trouble torrenting and remote connecting either.

The Zino HD all appear to use ATI-graphics and from what I've read, it works in windows but it isn't the optimal solution.

[jhsrennie]

I don't like the Zino because it seems to me that Dell had the chance to build a great HTPC to compete with the Mac Mini, but then spoiled it with a silly choice of processor and video card. However several people hereabouts have reported that XBMC works well enough on a Zino.

XBMC and Windows 7 run very well on my Revo 3610, and will generally work fine on any ION or ION2 based system. However I mostly use the Revo for development work or to take to friends' houses. For my own entertainment I use a Mac Mini. There is still no real competition for the Mac Mini :-) Bloody expensive though :-(

JR

[prae5]

Pretty much any ION or ION2 based machine will do want you want. If you are going to be using windows rather than linux, make sure you get 2gb ram as a minimum, preferably 4gb if you are going to be running lots of apps in the background.

[CrystalP]

There are a few threads in the forum about Zinos mysteriously shutting down... Not recommended.