The Exterior
When you first get the SB81P out of its box (more on the presentation later), it's got plastic protective sheets on the external drive bays at the front, protecting them from being marked or covered with fingerprints. Remove those and the SB81P is revealed in all its shiny black glory.
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Card reader sits at the top, stealthed optical bay underneath, stealthed floppy bay under that. The main facia area is next, housing the power and reset buttons and a drive activity LED. The power button glows oh-so-fashionable blue, with the drive activity LED an old-school orange. Guess what the first aesthetic modification to this particular XPC will be.
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Finally, at the bottom, lies the push action cover for the external front-mounted ports. You get mic and line audio inputs, a couple of USB2.0 ports and a single powered FireWire400 port.
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The black sheen to the front of the SB81P is a deep gloss, reflective under bright light. It's almost like a highly polished granite worktop from some angles.
The action for the optical drive cover doesn't make a sound in operation, bar the noise of the optical drive's tray striking the reverse side to push it open. Whether that damped action will continue for the entire life of a long-loved SB81P remains to be seen, but out of the box it's good stuff.
If I have a criticism here, it's that it's hard to site any installed optical drive so that activating the push action covers or even opening or closing the tray of the optical drive won't push the button against the optical drive again, causing it to open or close.
You can imagine my reaction to first setting up the SB81P, installing the optical drive tight against the front of the case, then trying to open the optical drive's tray, only to find that that slight jolt during its action was enough to press the button again without my intervention, making the drive tray retract. Of course that action pressed the button too, causing the drive try to slide out again. Repeat ad-infinitum for some hilarious in-out optical drive action, without me doing anything.
The push action covers take a firm press to gain purchase when closing, or to initially open them, something that stops accidental opening if you brush either cover while operating the optical drive bay or turning the unit on. More good stuff.
That's the attractive front examined, so let's have a poke round the sides and the back.
