nMEDIAPC Black Aluminum / Acrylic / Steel HTPC 1080P Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Pros: This case was everything I was looking for. It blends in nicely with my media stack (receiver, amps, etc.) and looks like an innocent DVD/Bluray player that does so much more. I installed a IR dongle (for IR remote) behind the window which hides everything functionally into a very tight, tidy and good looking package. It is also the lowest profile case possible that houses a "regular" power supply, and that was important for me.

Cons: Yep, the MB clearance height is low and could be an issue. (Thanks to those who commented before for the heads up.) I worked around that by adding spacers (aka washers) under the MB during installation. A little tricky, but doable and no short circuit concerns. This did require some ingenuity for the expansion cards but it worked out fine. 1 egg off for the Cons and the extra effort required.

Other Thoughts: Not sure why so many are down on this case. It is plainly a very inexpensive, low profile case. This should clue you in that there are some trade-offs. If you want the quality of an expensive case, then go buy one. The price and practicality of this particular case left money on the table to improve what I put inside, including a BluRay player vs the DVD I originally planned for.

Overall, I am very happy with my purchase.

Pros: Nice case, could fit well with other Stereo Components.........in 1985-1990.

Cons: The Case is huge. The front door that comes down was broken out of the box. Its obvious there is no quality control to check these things out.

Other Thoughts: none

Pros: Good design and use of space, small foot and still supports 3 internal drives. Full size ATX Powersupply bay gave me lots of option

Cons: Strange location for one of the Case Fans. It is right at the location where the drive bay structure truely inhibity air flow and actally caused the fan to touch something..I couldn't tell what as everything was very tight. I loosened the fan screws just a tad and the noise stopped

Other Thoughts: It would be much better if there was an SSD bay or slot. The 3.5 to SSD coverter encluse didn't work well with the 3.5 internal drive bay...but when all is said and done I was able to complete the build and really no real probles and case itself blends into the black glass so it is not noticable except the powerbutton....I wich I could make that light on/off switchable

Pros: Clean front bezel, makes for a decent HTPC case.

Cons: Shame it can't already come included with some sort of front display included, even if it increases the cost of the case. I noticed no HDD light built-in. And the case could have been designed to not be as deep, perhaps a bit taller, to accommodate.

Pros: It has plenty of HD space inside. Has a nice finish on the outside that matches the rest of your TV equipment. Also comes with a build in media card reader

Cons: The case seems a little crooked. While sliding the cover on and off it tends to get caught. Its really tight moving the cases parts around. Good thing is you really shouldn't be having to do this too often

Other Thoughts: Its an inexpensive case with lots of HD space. Looks good. You get what you pay for.

Pros: The form factor fits a normal AV equipment.

Cons: Supposedly it has three 3.5" internal drive bays. But here is the main problem. You would expect that with a case as big as a normal AV unit, it would have ample space for normal drive bays. But they are not. They are hard to install and you have to install them in a normal sequence. Two of them are underneath the front rack that also houses the ODD. The metal container does not have normal holes prefitted with rubber. Instead, they expect you to use the special screws, supposedly reducing the HDD noise. The third drive bay has no screw holes on the side. I want to install 2.5" SDD, so obviously I need to use some 2.5"-to-3.5" adapter. I tried two of them, none of them really fit, because most of these adapters only have holes on the side with standard screws, which won't fit any of these three, for the reason that I cited.

Other Thoughts: Cheap. The case shipped with some visible damage on the back, one of the extension plates was knocked off. These are not one-time metal sheets cut from the case itself, not like those separate plate sheets that with screws. So once they are off, they are off for good. It was okay for me, since I need to install a TV tuner card, and the damaged one happens to be the one that fits my board.

Also, the front card reader seems wobbly, and it doesn't feel like I can do anything about it.

Pros: Looks Nice, Quiet Fans

Cons: Optical drive does not fit.

Other Thoughts: The opening for the Optical drive is about 1/8 inch too short on all 4 sides. They claim the optional LED module can be installed without removing the front cover, but only one of the 4 screws is accessible without removing the cover.

Pros: Stylish case. Blends in well with my current entertainment center.

Cons: LOW RISERS!!!! Buyer Beware!!! If you're using an aftermarket heat sink such as SilenX EFZ-100HA1 make sure to insulate the panel beneath the mobo or the expose metal portion of the heatsink, OR BOTH!

I was quite excited to receive the case (received as a present) as a replacement for my current HTPC case
(APEVIA Black SECC Steel / Aluminum X-MASTER-BK/500 ATX Media Center / HTPC Case), both purchased from New Egg.

My previous case had regular risers and even recessed panels beneath the mobo to ensure there were no unintentional grounding possibilities. This case does not.

Once I migrated everything over I got to the mobo to post...about a minute and a half later the system completely died on me. I tried switching out PS's, removing my video card, my memory, placing mobo with cpu and ps only on wooden work bench. Still couldnt get it to post.

Afterwards I checked the clearance, sure enough, there was no room for play resulting in the case grounding out my mobo

Other Thoughts: I insulated the panel beneath the mobo and the exposed portion on the bottom of my heatsink AFTER I switched out mobo's (had the same HW setup on my main pc.) Everything works like a charm now. Would have been nice if that was the case before hand, ruining an otherwise completely usefully AM2+/DDR2 system. The system wasn't that old but old enough to make it such a pain to find a decent replacement AM2+ mobo these days at a decent price.

Guess I'll have to bite the bullet on this one.

Thanks a lot nMEDIAPC/Newegg.

Pros: Looks great, not too high & holds 3 hard drives, sound dampening grommets for some hard drives.

Cons: My new Intel mobo's connectors wouldn't line up with the emi shield. This was caused by the board not aligning with the rectangular cutout in the case. I had to cut and lower almost 0.1 inches (still need to do something about the resulting gap at the top). It's not pretty, but it works.

There was a very loud fan noise caused by the fan hitting a rivet and pushing the outside of fan case so it hit the fan blade. The assembler forced the fan in and broke a piece off! I had to get the dremel tool out (again) and shave down the side of the fan case so it fit better. Geesh--why they placed a rivet RIGHT where the fan goes is beyond my comprehension--all they had to do was move the rivet up an inch or so and it would be out of the way.

I thought about asking for a replacement, but you know how it goes--everything's in and you're dying to get things up and running. And once you start cutting, you're committed..

Other Thoughts: I'm amazed at the lack of low profile uATX cases. The others were pretty tall (==ugly). This one is barely bigger than one of my VCRs that I'm about to get rid of.

Pros: great look, quiet fan, loads of workspace

Cons: media tray was a bit tight for my dvd drive

Other Thoughts: great case. i love it just wish the lcd was part of the case and not an add on