Hiper Media Chassis

System Installation



Opening it up, you can see the layout inside the case. There are two bracing bars that keep the back aligned. The back-left houses the PSU, and the front left a bay that will take a 3.5 hard drive and a laptop optical drive. The front right has the USB circuitry.




The biggest downside of the unit is that the PSU is not particularly well housed. To minimize the space consumption, the PSU is caseless, and is covered with some flimsy plastic. It's a 200W unit, and is cooled by a small fan on the side that is quiet, although not as quiet as some newer supplies we've seen from Hiper. As you can see on the right, you won't want to go near it when the power is on. On the plus side, Hiper have used vertical Molex connectors rather than standard ones.




Here you can see a problem. If you have a longer than average hard drive, you're going to struggle to get the connectors in.




However, a little bit of dexterity will see you through. Hiper also include a rounded IDE cable with the box.




Here is a close-up of the brace bar and the USB connectors. We installed a Mini-ITX board from Via to keep the noise down to a bare minimum.




Annoyingly, the power button connector is two separate wires rather than just a single plug. However, once it's all working, we are in thorough approval of the understated blue LED for power.

Conclusions

For their first attempt at a PC case, Hiper have done rather well. We love the slim and sleek styling, and it's great that you can fit a full-power system in there if you have a suitable Micro-ATX motherboard and low-profile heatsink. Hiper also supply a 90-degree AGP riser board with the case, with PCI also available, so that you can mount a couple of expansion cards. This means there's even the possibility of using it for a proper gaming rig if the fancy takes you.

We are awaiting final pricing and stockists from Hiper, but initial indications are that it is going to be very reasonably priced. However, regardless of price, we would like to see a beefier PSU that's better housed in a future revision.

We look forward to seeing more cases from Hiper, who look like they could attract a large chunk of the market if they continue to put out top-notch products. The Media Chassis comes Recommended.