Conclusion

The results of our tests prove Zalman’s reputation as of a leading manufacturer of excellent cooling systems and original PC cases. The HD160 HTPC case is a nice addition to the company’s product range and we have absolutely no complaints about it (we are sure they’ll solve the problem with the wobbling volume knob before they start to ship the final product to market). The case can be stuffed with quite an advanced configuration which could not only play media files, but also cope with the latest gaming titles which look much prettier on a big screen than on an ordinary PC monitor.

As for the multimedia functionality, you can hardly hope for any immediate improvements. If there appears exclusive software from Zalman, we guess it would be with another case model. We have one recommendation about the HD160 ?if the functionality provided by Windows XP Media Center Edition is not enough for you, replace the display and remote control with alternative ones. This is not too difficult an operation and it won’t take you much time, if you’ve got some basic PC-handling skills.