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

Pros: The front panel looks sharp. This is now the sexiest looking thing in my living room. The acrylic drop down door is a great touch. It hides everything, including the optical drive. One advantage of this is that you don't have to worry about whether your drive lines up with the button and drive door like on other cases. The power supply goes in with the fan facing down where the case is vented. The vent is very large and lines up well with the PSU fan. For the 400W PSU I have there is a good amount of room between the PSU and the drive cage to hold extra cables. The drive cage design is nice. The cage has two screws. After removing them the cage lifts up and out to be populated. I currently have two drives in the lower cages and a DVD drive up top. There is officially room for one more HDD, but it looks like you might even be able to get a fourth one in. I haven't tried it, though. The case fans blow a decent amount of air and are very quiet. (continued below)

Cons: The case is small. This is tough to put as a con, though, because the size is one of the reasons I selected it. The size is great for a mATX build without too many add-in cards. The only real issue is cable management. A modular power supply is preferable if you can find one that isn't twice the power you need. There is also a minor issue with the strength and quality of the build. The materials used are sufficient, but not top notch. I would not recommend stacking anything on top of the case unless it is rather light. Some care must be taken when dealing with the back panel, but if you are careful you shouldn't have a problem.

Overall Review: (continued from Pros): One blows directly onto the CPU cooler while the other blows onto the side of the drive cage with the optical drive. There are two more vents on the sides that could take more fans if desired. (Other thoughts): Overall this is a great case. I was looking at other nMedia offerings, but liked the idea of a low profile case since I wasn't putting any heavy graphics cards in this. I also looked at the Lian Li PC-C37B. I imagine the Lian Li has a better overall construction, and possibly a little more room for cable management (1 less HDD bay), but it also costs $65 more. I also actually like the look of this case better than Lian Li's, too. Here is my setup: Case - nMediaPC HTPC 1080P Mobo - Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H CPU - Athlon II X2 240 Cooler - Scythe Shuriken RAM - 2 x A-DATA 1GB DDR2 800 PSU - Corsair 400W HDD - 160GB 7200rpm Hitachi and 1TB WD10EARS Green Caviar DVD-RW - LG Tuner Card - WinTV-HVR-2250 (when I can afford one)

Pros: Great appearance, well-constructed, easy to install components, great design and layout. The included case fans are quiet. The front panel features are awesome; it's a great value to have a card reader and USB jacks included... the SD slot is a bit shallow and upside down! The front flip-down panel makes for a slick appearance, but after living with it for a while, I probably would have selected differently.

Cons: For the most part, these are just quibbles... The mounting flange for expansion cards is built wrong! The screw holes are on the wrong side. If you want to get additional fans, be sure to go with slim fans, max 15mm thick. You might have to notch the fan frame; there's a rivet right where the fan goes. The system board supports are a tiny bit short, or the back panel hole is a tiny bit high, so the jacks aren't exactly centered. The front panel jacks are AC97, not HD, so be sure to use the correct cable/header to connect it to your motherboard!

Overall Review: Plan ahead; if you want a specialized entertainment machine that is sleek to fit into your entertainment center mostly for multimedia, this is a great box. But if you want maximum performance for gaming, go with something that supports full-height cards. There's no harddisk LED, which is a minor turn-off for some folks. This case is deep! Be sure to measure your intended home for it. Read the instructions! Following the installation sequence saves time! If you want to install the LCD display -- you do have to remove the front panel to get the 3.5 bay cover out, the bay cover is held by four screws! Remove the two back middle screws, then stick your fingers into the side edges of the inside of the case; there's tabs towards the top that you press towards the middle of the case so you can tip the front down. (I didn't see these instructions clearly described elsewhere, I busted one of the tabs trying to wrassle the front cover off!)

Pros: Plenty of room. I had no problem fitting a 500W PSU, BluRay burner, double slot low profile graphics card, TV tuner card, SSD, and hard drive in this case. Included fans are quiet.

Cons: No 2.5" bay. Not worth dropping an egg, but there's definitely space for one. Other than that, none, this is a pretty decent case.

Overall Review: A modular PSU would make things easier for cable management. Make sure to have a few zip ties handy. My unit got slightly tweaked in shipping, but not so much to have any real effect on installation. I had to tweak the drive cage slightly so that the optical drive would line up with the opening on the front of the case. Nothing worth losing an egg over. This thing is pretty deep. Measure your entertainment center before you order.

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.

Overall Review: 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: 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

Overall Review: 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: Looks Nice, Quiet Fans

Cons: Optical drive does not fit.

Overall Review: 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: -Very sleek-looking (minus the blue LED power button) -Low profile that fits easy into a entertainment center -Black goes with everything. Not much color or metal showing -Standard PSU -Decent Hard Drive capacity -Install wasn't the worst ever -Rubber bushings for Hard Drives -Flip-Down door hides white DVD-ROM/BLU-RAY drive Overall, it is a very good entry level (sub- $100) case that I could find that holds more than 2 hard drives and uses standard PSU's. I didnt want a PSU to blow only to have to pay top dollar to replace the specialized one. I moved from a tower to this case in about an hour is all. There probably is a limit on how big of a cooler you can put on it, but right now I am riding the stock one but am looking for a good aftermarket. Includes side fans for more circulation, but they arent the BEST at the noise/CFM ratio.

Cons: -LCD panel hole visible -Blue LED power button is somewhat bright (nice to have, but would like a lower brightness LED) -side fans are a little noisy. not too bad, but I am looking to replace them -left-side fan rubbed against the hard drive caddy and made a loud clicking noise when powered on. a thump on the side fixes that -MOBO mounting holes arent changeable, but not really a horrible thing

Overall Review: It has a few cons, but they are outweighed by the pros for me. I gave it 4/5 because of the fans and LCD panel hole. not the most attractive as I don't have a desire to put in an LCD panel. As I said, its a great starter case for the HTPC market. I got a good deal on it, so if you can ever get it with Free Shipping, its a good deal. The reports are right about the PCI-e/PCI slot screws being on the wrong side, but as long as you dont have more than 2 cards (GFX/Tuner) then you will be fine. I was going to put in an extra video input card in, but the screws didnt line up. Some good 'ol engineering there. Oh, also, follow the instructions (as best as you can). There is an order to installing the ROM/HDD's since the HDD's cover the bottom mounting holes of the ROM drive.

Pros: I have two of these casesd and yes, the build quality is not great. But for 50.00 dollars is not a bad option. I agree with another review person, the back plate for the mother board doesn't line up, but you know there could be worse things. It's not a 100.00 case, it's 50 bucks. Most everything fits inside it and there's a neat front LCD you can buy to make it look like real HTPC.

Cons: Motherboard may not line up with back plate. I say may because one of mine does and the second one doesn't. I also have one case the power button wire came un-soldered. I looked at another case up close named silver.... and it was even tighter internally and sure didn't look like a 100.00 case.