The package for the O Sphere is twice the size of the earlier ZBOX machines. The box does give away the surprise but you can't just not take a peek inside.
The contents are the same as all previous ZBOX machines. We find that the box contains:
- ZBOX O Sphere OI520 Plus
- Power adaptor + power cable
- Driver CD
- Driver flash stick
- Instruction manual
- Quick Start guide
- Warranty certificate
Let's take a look the the OI520 to see how the device is designed. There is a cube base with a much bigger sphere thrust into it. There are ventilation holes on the rear and well as the bottom.
From the top, the OI520 looks completely spherical and can be quite the attention grabber.
ZOTAC has moved all ports to the rear, traditionally ZBOX mini-pcs would have a few USB ports, the power button and the card reader on the front along with audio in/out. All of this has been shifted to the back. There are 4 USB 3.0 ports and 2 USB 2.0 ports in all, then we have a Gigabit ethernet port and two display options – an HDMI port and a DisplayPort.
On the right, we have yet another USB port.
The bottom of the device has vents for air intake which is done with the help of a little fan which seems to be 60mm across.
The other side of the OI520 Plus has a Kensington security slot.
We popped the OI520 Plus open to take a look at the hardware and were quite surprised with the arrangement inside. That's a 500 GB Samsung Spinpoint drive and 4GB of memory. We inserted another module to show how the device would look with all memory slots populated. The 802.11ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth module is on the underside of the device and the antennae are wired internally as is found in most laptops.