The advent of the home theater technology has transformed computing in both hardware and software aspects. The PC is an extremely flexible "animal" and home theater owners surely know how to adapt it to suit their needs.

Unlike gaming or office computing, the home-theater sector is not too keen on futuristic or cold-metal computer cases. Home Theater PC (HTPC) users would rather get a system to perfectly integrate with the smooth lines of external Blu-Ray players (let's not mention the HD-DVD format now) or with huge-resolution LCD displays.

If you are a serious HTPC user, then you know that you just can't take your old gamer case anywhere near the Home Theater components. You'd rather look for a fully-fledged HTPC case, such as Zalman's dedicated HD160XT Home Theater PC Enclosure, a stylish casing made out of the highest-quality brushed aluminum. The case has a thick frame and features perfectly machined grooves. The ventilation holes are also strategically placed in order to make a smooth transition from the outside to the inside of the chassis.

The unit comes with a plethora of expansion ports situated on the front panel, right under a very smooth aluminum door. Sliding it open will reveal some extra USB ports, FireWire connector (1394), audio ports as well as an integrated memory card reader to work with all the major formats used nowadays.

However, the real piece of resistance is the 7-inch touch screen LCD display, that is made of the best panel material, in order to guarantee you don't get any dead pixels. It is placed on the front panel in a manner that would allow the user interact with it in an optimal way. Underneath the LCD display, there are 5 function buttons, that are labeled with On/Off, Menu, Select/Auto, Up, and Down.

The LCD display is accompanied by an interestingly-shaped remote control that is fully compatible with a whole bunch of hardware configurations