Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've had one of these for about a year and a half now. I had decided to upgrade my "main" computer but had a pretty recent motherboard/CPU/memory setup which I decided was more than adequate for setting up as a media device. Of course, from there, the whole project just sort of GREW... and once I started looking at the case to mount it in, I fell in love with this one.
This is now, along with my Pioneer 1019 receiver, the centerpiece of my Home Theater setup. I have it at the bottom of a (fan-ventilated) stereo cabinet. It will generate a fair amount of heat, and it's reasonably heavy... and has the largest footprint of any of my electronic devices, to boot. So, it really can't sit directly on top of anything else. It's a SOLID piece of hardware.
The finish is beautiful. It is actually the "prettiest" part of my system. Note that the entire case is made of black-anodized, brushed aluminum. It's resistant to scratching and marring (as compared to a painted surface), though you should still treat it with care.
This is a full-size case... you don't require "half-height" PC components to build inside of this. This means it's larger than some other options out there, but it also means you can put a lot more POWER into the space, and still have it run pretty coolly.
The front panel is a really nice touch. It's not "crucial" to use, and I seldom use controls on the front (though if the remote fails, you can do pretty much anything using those controls). The big knob is a volume control and a "press to mute" button as well. The twelve buttons under the touchscreen are pre-configured to be replications of some of the most common remote-control buttons. But the main feature is the screen, which is a TOUCH SCREEN. You can basically control your PC entirely using this, which even includes a "smartphone" style virtual keyboard.
But for me, I mainly leave the front panel as a display unit... it's my graphic equalizer display when running any of my media software, and when not, it's a basic "system status display" (CPU activity, memory status, hard drive status, network status, email status, etc, all rotating). I have a little "news streamer" at the bottom, as well.
The remote isn't a typical remote... you'll want to use the provided remote rather than some "universal remote" because its features are pretty unique. It has the normal remote control buttons, of course, but it also has the center "pad" which isn't like any other remote I've seen... it can serve (through a toggle button) as either the keyboard arrow keys, or the mouse pointer. It has a series of buttons around it which are analogs of important keyboard keys... backspace, space, escape, enter, left-mouse-click, right-mouse-click, start-menu, and application-menu, task-switcher ("alt-tab"), system shutdown, application shutdown, plus an optical-disk-eject button. Plus a special "application launcher" (which lets you pull up a quick menu for your favorite media apps without use of a keyboard, and which allows one "most used" program to be assigned to a one-button-launch on the remote... I use Media Center for that, but you can assign anything you wish).
So, while I use my Harmony remote for every other element of my system, I still keep the Zalman (actually Soundgraph iMon, rebranded for this case) remote out at all times as well.
This isn't a "computer case" as much as it is a "very high end stereo equipment" case, which just happens to be made to hold computer hardware.
It's easy to work with, easy to install and maintain.
There are a couple of things to bear in mind. First, the front-display is a SLIGHTLY older design... it isn't a separate "smart" device (iMon has replaced this with what's basically a freestanding PC-let now, connected purely by USB, but this device is a keyboard/mouse/moniitor without a "brain" of it's own). This means it needs both an internal USB connection to your motherboard (not a problem with any modern PC board designs) but also needs a free VGA port on your video card. Yes, VGA... not HDMI or DVI. Virtually all video cards have multiple outputs these days, and quite a few still have VGA ports, of course. Mine has an HDMI, a DVI, and a VGA port, in fact. And there are "DVI-to-VGA adaptors" which you can use if you don't have a VGA port but have a free DVI port.
There's a VGA cable which snakes through the case, out the back, and then connects to the free VGA port (or adapter) on your video card. Without this... no front-panel display.
Second... the case needs proper ventilation. You need to ensure good airflow all around. If it's in a tightly-packed cabinet with limited airflow, it's going to get pretty hot, and your hardware won't last as long. If it gets too hot (like with ANY computer) you might expect to see crashes.
There's only room for a single optical drive. I recommend getting a blu-ray burner. You'll be snapping off the front tray cover from that drive, and sticking the included drive cover on in its place. The included piece is a perfect match to the case itself, of course... but it only says "DVD" and I wish mine said "Blu-ray" instead. Oh well... that's just a quibble, isn't it?
This was a very expensive purchase, but I use this every day... and you get what you pay for. This is the nicest HTPC case I've ever seen. And I've never once had even the smallest regret for having gone for the "best option" here.
Right now, Zalman isn't offering a new version of this case. Soundgraph, the company which makes the iMon display panel at the center of this case, has recently released their new version (as mentioned above) and it's not 100% compatible... it's not a drop-in replacement, in other words. So I suspect Zalman is currently working up the revised version of this case. But you can't go wrong with this case... it's a keeper as far as I'm concerned!
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