Thermaltake's DH 102 HTPC chassis rocks 7-inch touchscreen
By Darren Murph 
posted Sep 30th 2007 4:44PM
posted Sep 30th 2007 4:44PM
We know, not everyone sits within touching distance of their HTPC, but tossing a seven-inch touch panel into such a chassis provides excellent bragging rights if nothing else. Thermaltake's DH 102 HTPC enclosure manages to include just that, along with a piano black mirror coating and aluminum front panel, wireless remote, front-mounted jog dial, USB 2.0 / FireWire ports, built-in Media LAB interface, and space for a number of internal hard drives. Unfortunately, pricing details have yet to be released, but if it ends up a bit too pricey for you, there's always the DH 101 that forgoes the snazzy (albeit potentially unnecessary) touchscreen and replaces it with a smaller LCD (or none at all).[Via DarkVision Hardware]
Or have a look at the Zalman case that's been out for aages.
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/htpccases/hd160xt
So... what are YOU compensating for
(I'll give you a hint - its something you can touch)
It's probably about the same size as that touchscreen...
that lcd will just be distracting - even a two line scroll is
touch screen remotes seem to be the way to go instead. if the way you're going is away from the 30+ inch screen at all...
These things have been around for a while. Not sure where they are getting the huge mark-up in cost, you could've bought am awesome HTPC case with a 4" screen last year for ~$200-250. Too bad once they became popular they either became unattainable or way over-priced. Granted this screen is 7", I highly doubt it should demand such a price, especially for such a useless feature. I'll relegate this to an impulse buy that will find itself sitting unused a week after you buy it; in other words, it looks cool but just becomes a distration. Why would you need a 7" screen when your PC is connected to a 60" monitor?
Useless bling. All those buttons on the front, like those on the Zalman HD160, will rely on flaky software from some company that provides zero support.
All you need on the front of an HTPC case is an optical drive bay, power and rest. Maybe USB for driver updates. The rest is useless flash.
Looking at the Thermaltake web site for this thing it appears as if they blew the design interally. 60mms fans? In an HTPC rig. Yeah, I want a blow dryer in my rack.
The HD160 whi still having a useless front display is a far superior design.
where can i find those slick LCD remote for Vista??? i saw them on engadget months ago but cant find them in any stores!
Yeah, regardless of its usefulness, it'd be cool to have one of these.
Actually, this case is one of the first to use the new iMon Touch and while I'm usually against the on the case touchscreens, it seems like a lot of work has gone into making this actually useful as opposed to just another cloned display. See the youtube videos iMon has posted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OypkFGoZPuQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBOcdm0mB9c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYnfG8CjhUc
ya cool, but what, you're going to get up and crouch in front of your tv to scroll through media?
that's comfortable...
Also, the screen does turn the backlight off while movies are playing.
Wow, complete ripoff of the Silverstone LC18
Wow, complete ripoff of the Silverstone LC18
These cases aren't nearly as useful in computers put near the tv as they are in media center servers put somewhere else in your house. You can avoid even hooking up a monitor to it if you need to do any work on it.