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With the introduction of Zonbu the concept got my attention rather quickly. After reading the idea behind the product I immediately reacted and give my endorsement because I though it was the best idea anyone could have. After doing some reading around the web, I found out that this is not the first time this concept is introduce in the market and previous efforts failed. After reading some articles about Zonbu and seen some hands on reviews, I’m still thinking this product rocks.

By now, two characteristics have me fascinated, first is the power consumption, and second is the service behind the product. Ergonomics is also as elegant and space conscious as some other products found in the market. This company seems to have put a lot of though in the making of this product and that is why people can’t stop talking about it.

I started researching the energy consumption of several computers to compare them to this product. There are hundreds of computer in the market that claim to have the best power consumption available, but the form factor makes it almost unfair to compare them. So I decided to compare the hardware with a Mac Mini, design-wise I thing the Mac Mini is an awesome, good looking pc but power consumption is just something else.

Reports around the Internet points at the fact that Power PC Mini’s draw less power than Intel Mini’s. The fact is that several different sites stated that Power PC Mac Mini draw anywhere from 20 to 80 Watts, depending on the given task. Using the Mini as DVD players draw about 28 Watts, this pointed to be a “normal to low” rate of power consumption for this activity. If you read carefully the continuous power consumption that Apple give as part of the specifications for the Mac Mini you’ll notice that Power PC Mini was 85 Watts in contrast Intel is 110 Watts, that’s 33% more.

Take all this facts and soon you realize that Zonbu is an awesome machine, drawing 15 Watts under regular use. Of course there are task that you can give to a Mac Mini that Zonbu is not be able to handle, like video conversion. At the same time who would buy the Mac Mini thinking on doing video conversion, you would want a powerful machine for that. Energy wise Zonbu rocks.

Another great aspect of the Zonbu product is the back up service, continuous because you are actually dealing with an external storage. Let’s say something bad happens, like an earthquake or fire. You’ll loose everything that is important to you, photos, documents, presentations, etc. Not with a good external, back up service. Zonbu product integrates the service in one package, of course, you can get the machine without the service, but that would defeat the purpose.

Several backup services area currently available in the market, check out backup.com. These people charge $64.95 for 10GB of storage, which are about 6.50 per gigabyte. The Zonbu product service gives you 25GB of storage for $12.95, which is about $0.52 Cents per gigabyte. In addition, we are talking not only about storage, the same $12.95 gets you automatic backups, maintenance, upgrades, free box replacement, and unlimited Internet support. Beat that if you can.

If you are the type of person that will go to a department store hoping to buy a $300 dollar machine that will include a high power consumption machine with no backup utilities, no software upgrades, no support, and you just want to surf the web, write letters, keep your digital photos in one place, then Zonbu is for you. This is not a paid advertisement, this is just my opinion, if you disagree with me let me know. Give us your reasons if you don’t like this product and tell us why you like it if you do. Leave your comments on this post or email me at lumencreativegroup (at) gmail.com. Thanks.