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Review: Shuttle SB51G XPC

by Tarinder Sandhu on 26 October 2002, 00:00

Tags: Shuttle

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The outer box gives most of the secrets away. What you're looking at is perhaps the future of PCs. The basic premise is to cram as many value-adding features as possible into a small, good-looking chassis. It's not a question of form over function, it's more of form and function, without sacrifice.

Speaking of size, nothing illustrates it better than a picture. Here is the SB51G sitting next a mid-sized Lian-Li PC60.

The Lian-Li PC60 isn't a large case by any stretch of the imagination, yet it's made to look like a comparative giant by the tiny SB51G. The effect is further compounded as the Lian-Li is over 20cm deeper than Shuttle's box of tricks.

The shiny, beige cover fronts a unit that measures 20cm in width, 18cm high, and 27cm in depth. Speaking of the cover, Shuttle, in a bout of inspiration, give you the option of changing the front cover to either a red, blue, or green fascia. Taking a leaf from mobile phone manufacturers, perhaps ?. To further differentiate your Shuttle from other owners', you can opt for a glowing front panel and carry bag, amongst other things.

The SFF unit is well-built with a feeling of rigidity and quality permeating throughout. Much like the SS51G, and going from left-to-right, we have a S/PDIF out socket, a microphone socket followed by an headphone socket. Next door the two USB ports are USB2.0 compliant. Lastly, a Firewire (IEEE1394a) port completes the lineup, giving you options for high-speed peripheral connectivity. I'll show you how these connect to the motherboard a little later. A pleasing blue LED glows whilst in operation, and a yellow LED flashes on when the hard drive is in use.

You can clearly see a floppy drive and CD-based cutouts at the top of the above picture. Again, I'll show you how these connect-up inside. The fascia can be removed by the use of an appropriate allen key (not provided).