Packaging

The box itself is colourful and very slick. All the necessary information is available at a glance.

While inside things are equally well laid out. Everything is packed snugly and well protected so reducing the risk of serious damage in transit.

External Features

Out of the box things are just as impressive. It's clear a lot of care has gone into the design of the CF-S968 and there's certainly a look of elegance that should leave it looking perfectly at home nestled amid your home theater setup or hi-fi equipment. For the LAN addict the integrated but removable carrying handle makes transportation a doddle in addition to looking good.

As you can see the front of the CF-S968 features a single 5.25" and 3.5" external bay. Just below the 3.5" bay on the right is the power switch while to the left is the reset switch. In the middle are the power and HDD activity LEDs and to prove they've not ignored current trends the power LED is of the high intensity blue variety while the HDD activity LED is orange. The entire front fascia is protected by an unusually thick sheet of Perspex (Plexi) that gives a high gloss appearance and serves to protect it from knocks.

At first I was a little surprised by the choice of connectors placed on the front but the more I think about it the more I've realised that there are pro's and con's no matter where you place the connectors, front or back. In fact I can even see some merit to having them in a breakout box! If we take the humble games console as a model then we see that it's common to plug your controllers, in this case keyboard and mouse, in the front but old habits die hard and the tradition for PC users has always been to plug them in the back. For the user intent on integrating the CF-S968 into a living room environment I'm guessing they'd eventually decide to opt for a wireless keyboard and mouse and in this situation I guess having the receiver plugged in at the back does make more sense. Fortunately CubesystemZ do have a redesigned model in the pipeline that places the keyboard an mouse connectors at the rear.

In terms of the other connectors it does seem a little odd that the speaker out socket, which doubles as, and is labeled as a headphone socket, is on the back while the rear speaker channel and center/sub is on the front but this is done partly to accommodate the fact that motherboards are traditionally hardwired this way and there's not a whole lot you can do about it easily. There's certainly an argument for the Firewire ports to be relocated to the front and again this is a feature of the new, redesigned model.

The decisions as to which connectors go where is always going to be a tricky one and no one way will suit everybody. I could argue for a breakout box, or for the connectors to go on the side rather than the front, but ultimately it's always a compromise.

Because of the depth of the Plexi you can forget using most USB Flash drives in the front ports and will have to opt for those on the back instead. SPDIF in is a nice inclusion and along with the SPDIF out connector this will make integration into your home theater setup a much simpler task, as will the unusual inclusion of an optical SPDIF cable in the box!

Apart from the Plexi front and removable plastic carry handle the entire chassis is manufactured from 1mm Aluminium. This offers excellent structural rigidity and also looks good too. Although we've questioned the cooling benefits of full sized Aluminium cases I's suggest that in such small systems the case really can begin to function as an additional form of cooling by helping to radiate excess heat to the surroundings.

As is common the surface finish is brushed though in the case of the CF-S698 the effect is a little coarser than we've become used to, although this is actually quite effective. The top beneath the handle has a gloss finish and appears to have a protective lacquer coat. And as for those four bolts on each side panel, well I doubt they're purely cosmetic or just for use with the side windowed version though even if they are we may see a range of bolt-on logo or art strewn panels introduced at a later date.

The rear of the system was rather a nice surprise with a couple of features that I was really pleased to find, not least the two expansion slots suggesting that the CF-S968 comes with a little upgradeability inside. What really made me take notice though was the inclusion of TV out because let's face it, if this is going to become your DVD player, your CD player, your video and CD library database and your MP3 server in a living room environment what better control interface than your television? The colour coded I/O plate is a nice touch too that should help simplify the connection of devices in a dimly lit corner and though it might not look like it, behind that long rectangular grill lies a cooling fan.

There really is a good array of connectors with two Firewire (IEEE1394) ports, two Com ports, TV and S-Video out, VGA connector, two USB2.0 ports, Realtek RTL8100B 10/100M Fast Ethernet port, audio connectors and SPDIF out.