WOW, who knew trying to find the CPU SPEC on your device would be hard has heck. I had to navigate to like 4 different website till I found one that said more then Pentium Gold CPU. Looks like you have a 1.6GHZ CPU, this could be the cause of the delay you speak of.
Its technically bellow my recommended SPEC for running CORE version of Zorin OS. Until the Zorin team releases Zorin LITE with XFCE, I think its just something you will have to deal with for now.
In regards to Zorin conenct, I found this informative post from our very own Swarrfendor.
I've never used Zorin Connect, so I can't give you advice on something I don't have knowledge of, but I can at least help by sharing his post in helps that it might well, help you in some way.