"MZ915-M" XC Cube PC offers a host of new and attractive features, including more compact size, better performance, greater home entertainment support, lower power consumption with silence plus a more sleek design.

Small size but full functions

The extremely low noise level of MZ915-M is for musicians or multimedia designers who are concerned about silent working environment, and its performance is for 3D gamers who seek to keep up power. The product’s upgradeability is for upgrageeks who need to satisfy their special demands. Its stylishness is for fashion pursuers who want a vivid and stylish PC. The compact size is for students living in dorm and business executives who are always on the move, and its complete I/O ports are for budget users who do not want to pay extra cost for connectivity.

With the mobile platform, the new product is among the latest in AOpen’s XC Cube Mini PC series. It gives customers an additional choice for PCs of small form factor with powerful functions.

Powerful 915G and ICH6 chipsets

Employing the newer Intel i915G chipset, the new XC Cube Mini PC adopts the Intel mobile CPU of 479-pin socket, enabling the PC to demonstrate better performance on the strength of dual channels for DDRII DIMM up to 4GB and Dothan 533MHz support. The motherboard is built with 915G and ICH6 chipsets supporting Intel onboard Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (GMA900).

Great expandability with multiple CPU support

The model has one other major advantage of greater expandability with more CPU support (Intel Pentium-M up to 2.26 GHz and Celeron-M up to 1.7 GHz). It supports Intel Dothan CPU with 2MB L2 cache made with 90nm manufacturing process and Celeron M CPU with 1MB L2 cache.

Its superior upgradeability as compared with products from other suppliers on the market doubles the capacity of memory with two slots up to 4GB plus more slots for add-in cards (PCI x 1 and PCIExpress-16 x1).

MZ915-M’s standard optical disk drive device (ODD) bay supports any combo, DVD-RW, and super multi-DVD found on the market plus fast Ethernet — gigabit PCI Express LAN.

Ideal entertainment functionality – supporting HDTV and 7.1-channel audio

The new XC Cube Mini PC also provides the home entertainment functionality from the power of HDTV support (YPbPr) and HD-Audio (7.1 channel) while the equipment is ultra-silent with much less power consumption and lower temperature.

Ultra thin, Ultra light

In addition to its versatile and powerful functions, MZ915-M XC Cube PC is ultra-slim and ultra-light. With dimensions of 106 (H) x 320 (L) x 200 (W) mm and a volume of 6.78 liters, it has a weight of only 2.6 kg (5.73 lb. net weight of bare system).

The PC also boasts as the quietest SFF both in idle mode and full loading. The acoustic figure is always around 27 dB due to the Intel Pentium M SpeedStep Technology with multiple voltage and frequency operating points. It is also further enhanced with AOpen SilentTek technology for 150W adapter instead of power supply design.

Complete I/O

Furthermore, it has a sharp and stylish design with various I/O compatibility (with multifunction card reader for SD, MMC, MS card, etc.), according to an executive handling the development and marketing of the XC Cube mini series at AOpen.

Some IT industry analysts gave a thumb-up to the new XC Cube Mini PC. They pointed out that most other similar miniature computers available on the market share the drawbacks as being a low-end computer with limited memory slot that restricts memory expansion and upgrade.

Most other mini computers are also restrained by weak VGA feature (like 32 MB graphic card) for gamers and power users.

The weaknesses of one other similar mini computer includes limited I/O ports (even no microphone-in jack and only 2 USB ports), no built-in card reader, slower LAN bandwidth of only 100 M, weak upgradeable CPU socket design, and without the fastest CPU (one model has only two 1.25 and 1.42 GHz CPUs supporting).

These mean a lot of hidden costs for consumers to tack on matching components or peripherals like monitor, keyboard, mouse, speaker, etc., unless they choose the AOpen products, the analysts added.