Accent HTPC HT-200 Gold Home Theatre PC Case Review
Category : Cases Manufacturer : Accent
Posted by: Arnie on 2003-06-20
Exterior
Exterior
The Front Bezel is made of solid aluminium around a third of an inch thick. The twin 5.25” bays are concealed by an aluminium door which is sealed magnetically. It has the all-important Mercedes Benz quality “clunk” sound when you close it, adding to the HTPC’s so far excellent build quality. I wouldn’t have minded seeing optional bay covers, but then I suppose if you only needed the one bay, you would buy the HT100 model.
Underneath the bay covers are two external USB ports and a Firewire port. Accent has clearly realised that many users will want to incorporate as much front-connectivity as possible if they are integrating the PC into a Hi-Fi stack, and these are welcome additions. I am not sure if the External USB 2.0 connectors are high-speed compatible or not, but the wires look substantial enough to do so. Some documentation would have helped here, but alas, the Accent comes with none. The Firewire lead needs to be connected to an external header, but this at least guarantees universal compatibility – not all boards have an internal connection.
To the left of the drives one finds the power and reset buttons which are plastic rather than metal. They are sprayed with metallic gold paint to match the rest of the case, but I think aluminium buttons would look even better. The observant amongst you will notice the “Dolby” and “DTS” trademark logos are absent from the actual case, despite appearing in Quiet PC’s product photos on their website. This is a good thing, as an ECS board using on-board AC97 certainly would not qualify for these illustrious audio standards.
Between the power buttons and the 5.25” bays is a black panel. This is the space where you mount the optional VFD unit (Vacuum Fluorescent Display). The unit available at Quiet PC is a Samsung 16T202DA1E 16 x 2 unit and has a multiude of potential applications, from displaying system temperature and fan speed, to showing the name of a playing film and how much time there is elapsed/remaining. Naturally this is software dependant, and how you use the screen is up to personal taste. For those interested, the VFD screen costs an extra £45 ex Vat from Quiet PC. Another application for this space is the mounting of a 3.5” floppy or ZIP drive if you remove the smoked glass panel, but I think its obvious that this would totally ruin the case's looks. Isn’t it time you invested in one of those funky USB pen drives anyway?
