Do I spy one of those awesome looking little Asus mATX gaming boards? Are you going to be reviewing it?

They are nice cases, but if I think the price needs to come down by £100 to make people even start considering them.

Originally Posted by 91
Do I spy one of those awesome looking little Asus mATX gaming boards? Are you going to be reviewing it?

Next week ;)

i dont get the point of the screen being that small...

if youre going to pay that much for a case you may as well go the whole hog and get the origenAE case with the 12" 1080p screen

Overkill, 90's hi-fi look, very much like a Yamaha AV amp or the like from back in the day. Touch screen totally pointless, and @ £400 far to expensive. Mutton dressed as lamb lol

I think it looks great and the fact that the inside is also painted is a nice touch, I want to get my hands on this case or the Silverstone CW03 HTPC Case for my next HTPC build.

It's not painted, it's anodised - engrained colour into the metal oxide layer.

The LCD should be placed in an external enclosure with a battery back and wireless VGA...

Oh this is so confusing... I reviewed the original HD160, but it seems it has nothing to do with this case except the name. The side panels are from HD135 and the internal layout is KINDA 160-ish, but then again not. I like how they've paid attention to the HDD-cooling, and I love the fact that there's an actual cage like in HD135, but then again they've removed the nice wire-fanguards and replaced them with the cheapest cut-out versions. What's that all about?

The screen seems like a nice toy, and allthough there's no way I'd pay the premium to get a screen on my HTPC-case, I kinda see where that's coming from. If the HTPC is hooked up to a proper setup with a projector and a ton of amps then I understand it's sometimes nice to tweak some settings on the small screen and save the lamp of the projector... And if you can pay all the other equipments then hell, one 7" screen shouldn't blow the budget :)

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
It's not painted, it's anodised - engrained colour into the metal oxide layer.

Sort of, an extra layer than can be coloured, added outside the original oxide layer of the Aluminium!

Originally Posted by Jipa

The screen seems like a nice toy, and allthough there's no way I'd pay the premium to get a screen on my HTPC-case, I kinda see where that's coming from. If the HTPC is hooked up to a proper setup with a projector and a ton of amps then I understand it's sometimes nice to tweak some settings on the small screen and save the lamp of the projector... And if you can pay all the other equipments then hell, one 7" screen shouldn't blow the budget :)

or just use vnc from a differennt computer

Originally Posted by Woodstock
or just use vnc from a differennt computer

Yeah first stick the movie to the drive and then run back to the office to make the settings and... It's just handy sometimes, ok? :)

Originally Posted by 91
Sort of, an extra layer than can be coloured, added outside the original oxide layer of the Aluminium!

That's just being pedantic. :P I'm technically not wrong.

Yes, but at the same time, your not 100% right! I win!

Mwaah! :D

Originally Posted by Jipa
Yeah first stick the movie to the drive and then run back to the office to make the settings and... It's just handy sometimes, ok? :)

or just use the remote

Check out this insane HTPC case that fathazza mentioned (I thought the Zalman was $$$)

http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/25/originae-s210-the-ultimate-home-theater-pc/
(12 HDDs?)

Yeash.. that seems like a right pain. 6/10 for usability.. the screen and remote are next to useless due to the software and the untoward cables make installing stuff a complete headache. Too many points there.
Plus that thing looks like a dust nightmare. Too bad the 10/10 features don't include some easy removable filters to go over those fans/holes. You'd have to wear the screw threads down when you open it for cleaning out.

Originally Posted by 91
Yes, but at the same time, your not 100% right! I win!

Mwaah! :D

Well technically nor are you, but I wasn't arsey enough to point it out muhahaha :D



;)


Joey - if you spend a lot of time getting it right, it has all the feature potential right there. You can use the remote or the screen or the buttons etc. Yes, no fan filters but not everyone wants them - the case should dissipate quite a bit of heat and should sit with very little airflow to be quiet. Filters just reduce the flow making it noisier. Personally I would like to have seen them, but I accept why people don't need them.

i'd rather have one of those zalman TNN systems.

I rather have a network 'play everything' player with a very good HD decoder chip, all sorts of outputs like dvi/hdmi/optical/digital outputs, usb in the front so i can stick a 8gb stick/ or external drive into to player and it plays the content. And a nice onscreen menu to browse te network for content and internet for content from youtube, shoutcast whatever from yout lazy chair

For example the snazio media players, or what about the Alienware bluray mediaserver ?

ThermalTake also do something that looks like a clone of this for a lot less money - well, £250 instead of £400. DH102, I think the model number is.

I'm really glad I read this review, as I'm in the middle of deciding what sort of HTPC case I want to get, and have been seduced by the idea of a little screen on the front of it. But if the software is that bad... not sure I want to know. Kind of a 'music and movies' rig, so the 7" screen would be useful for having a visual indication of what was going on without having to have the HDTV on when all it's doing is playing music.

I can see the screen being handy for playing music without having to turn my projector on. Other then that it likely isn't good for much else.

Originally Posted by Stonewall78
I can see the screen being handy for playing music without having to turn my projector on. Other then that it likely isn't good for much else.

for that mate youd be better off running a webserver and using an internet tablet (nokia n770/n800, ipod touch etc) to control the music.
http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?SlimserverAndNokia770 is an easy way of getting it going

I read several posts from several websites and most of people seems to be unanimous. The touchscreen is almost unusable mainly because of microsoft operating system constraints. My goal is to be able to listen music without turning on my main LCD Screen.
It was the purpose of purchasing this case. What about Express Gate? I just discovered that the htpc could be up and running in few seconds and will allow me to browse the local hard drive to play music. Does someone already tried that? Is the touchscreen usable with Express Gate? If yes, it will be very suitable for me. Thanks

Welcome!

Express Gate will work with it, but it won't play music or movies. I do not know if the touchscreen will work as well. I have asked for this feature many times from Asus.