Although it can provide great flexibility as the centrepiece of your digital entertainment, the PC is way behind standalone DVD players and stereos in terms of appearance and useability.

For a computer to warrant the title media centre PC, it needs to offer more than just software. HTPC (Home Theatre PC) cases add front panel controls and, in this case, a brushed aluminium exterior to blend with other consumer electronics. But Zalman goes one step further with the HD160XT.

The main selling point of this chassis is the 15:9 ratio 7-inch LCD screen. This is a plug-and-play monitor, powered by a standard Molex connector, which makes use of a VGA cable fed from the rear of the case and routed to your video output. This screen works like a normal monitor, the only difference being its fixed position in your chassis.

Reading text is not easy with a mere seven inches of desktop real estate, although increasing DPI and allowing font smoothing in Windows can help. This is not a big problem, since you'll find yourself using it for full-screen media centre applications more often than email or word processing tools; the HD160XT is meant for entertainment after all.

Hands-on approach

The front panel display benefits greatly from touchscreen functionality, which means it's perfectly possible to take a computer housed in the HD160XT, with no mouse, keyboard or external monitor, and interact with your media centre like normal. This has become the holy grail for HTPC designers, who want to embellish a PC with the simple one-touch functionality of a stereo or DVD player, a major barrier to the PC becoming essential for the living room.

The touchscreen works by attaching an internal USB connector to a spare port on your motherboard, then installing a driver and control application. Functionality is sadly restricted to users of Windows only. After running the calibration tool, the touch interface is precise enough to make controlling your system a breeze, with full-sized track information, graphic equalizers or any software you choose.

Aside from its LCD screen and touch controls, the HD160XT is a standard media centre case. It features a set of four exhaust fans - located near the CPU, hard drives and next to the PSU - that all connect to a single fan controller allowing their speed to be adjusted within Windows.