Zalman HD160XT Plus HTPC chassis Review

While its looks are clearly designed by the gods themselves, it's not followed through into some of the core design aspects -- obviously someone made a list of every feature they could think of and someone else drew a kick ass looking case -- then the two were pressed together between someone's palms, hoping to get the ultimate PC case. It hasn't happened here with the Zalman HD160XT Plus -- it needs to be seamless and work without issue but it just isn't as we continually had to find ways around problems.

It does a lot of good things and it will look a perfect complement to any home theatre setup -- I know because I've used the original Zalman HD160 as an HTPC case for the past six months, but I wouldn't ever consider upgrading, it's just not worth over twice the price. And while I love the full colour display with the huge potential it brings over a standard VFD -- it's just not as easy to use and customise as I'd like.

By now, several years down the line since its first HTPC cases, we'd expect Zalman would have worked on not only its design but the package as a whole and for £400 we'd expect nothing less than perfection. Unfortunately this isn't the case.