We’ve all heard of Shuttle before but have you heard of nMedia before?  nMedia System, Inc. is actually a very young company, founded in 2004 and the company is based in Castro Valley, Northern California.  The company is heavily involved in the entertainment sector, and to be specific, the company specializes in home theater personal computers (HTPC).

As small-form-factors become ever so popular, the market for HTPC is slowly making headway into the market.  Even at Computex 2006, many companies such as Shuttle and Thermaltake are already showing off their latest and greatest HTPC options to the public.  In the present day, every household has some sort of entertainment system, may it be simply a DVD player, a VCR, or a stereo system.  HTPC aims to combine all the electronics into one to give the consumer a more powerful and more functional system to meet all our high-end demands.

What makes HTPC more appealing is Windows XP Media Center Edition.  Though I personally don’t go around praising Microsoft everyday, but Microsoft did do a fine job at opening the portal for PC based entertainment systems.  With the fairly intuitive and fancy GUI interface, the user can immediately watch their favorite shows or movies on the big screen.

With the software technology set and ready, all there is left is the hardware portion.  We finally got our hand on the nMedia’s HTPC 180SA (silver) case which is scheduled to be available on June 28th.  So without further delay, let’s get started and take a look to see what nMedia has to offer.

Specifications

Model	HTPC 180SA
Color	Silver
Dimension	15.5’’ (W) x 5.4’’ (H) x 15’’ (D)
Material	Aluminum & Steel
Motherboard	Support Micro-ATX ( 9.6’’ x 9.6’’ )
Power Supply	NMEDIAPC 300W Super Silent Micro-ATX ( 20 & 24 pin | 90mm fan )
Drive Bays	1 x External 5.25’’ Bay 3 x Internal 3.25’’ Bay
Expansions	4 slots / Full Size
Cooling	1 x 60mm Silent Case Fan
Front Panel	All-in-one Card Reader (Internal USB) 1 x IEEE 1394 2 x USB 2.0 1 x Mic 1 x Audio Non programmable LCD displays CPU Temp & Fan Speed Fan Speed Controller
Special Features	MCE Receiver Rack (receiver not included) S/PDIF Output Jack CPU overheat and Fan out-of-order alarms

 

next >

---

• Introduction (1 of 4)
• Initial Impressions and External Design (2 of 4)
• Internal Design (3 of 4)
• Accessories and Conclusion (4 of 4)