Outside the box
Measuring 245mm wide, 235mm tall, and 340mm deep, the Qbic isn't all that much bigger than Shuttle's popular G-series chassis. That's pretty impressive considering the Qbic's extra 5.25" drive bay.

The Qbic (right) next to Shuttle's SN95G5 (left)

Posing the Qbic with Shuttle's SN95G5 is probably the most striking way to illustrate their clashing aesthetics. While the SN95G5 looks sleek and reserved, the Soltek cube is decidedly more playful, cute, and even toy-like. It's really a love-it-or-hate-it design. Personally, I don't mind the look, although the yellow is a shade too pastel for my tastes. Fortunately, the Qbic is also available in red, blue, or black, although the silver-grey trim is consistent across all color schemes.

Obviously, the Qbic's bolder aesthetic makes it less appropriate for business environments and home theater PCs, but the look will definitely attract attention at LAN parties and in dorm rooms. Whether it will attract the kind of attention you want is another matter entirely.

From the front, the Qbic's smooth curves hint at classic automotive styling. Soltek neatly stealths the cube's drive bays to keep beige drives from interfering with the cube's hard to match color scheme.

A pair of hinged doors covers the Qbic's external 3.5" drive bay and its front port cluster. The 3.5" drive bay door is a little flaky, though. Because the front of the cube is so curved, the door's hinge is actually designed to move up and down slightly as it swings open and closed. The extra play in the hinge makes the 3.5" door feel a little loose when it's open, but the door still closes tightly.

To keep 5.25" optical drives hidden from prying eyes, the Qbic uses a pair of spring-loaded doors that open and close automatically as drive trays slide in and out. Each stealthed drive bay is tied to an adjustable external eject button that can be used whether the drive is open or closed. The stealthed drive bays work well, although I had to remove the drive tray front panel on one of my older CDROM drives because it kept getting caught on the drive bay door.

The Qbic's plastic front panel smoothly flows to a plastic shell that covers the rest of the cube. The plastic exterior actually sits on top of an internal aluminum skin; you can think of the shell as a body kit for a cube—ground effects and spoiler not included.

From an aesthetic perspective, the Qbic's smooth lines and consistent color scheme make a good case for the plastic body kit. However, the extra material also makes the cube heavier and potentially less effective at radiating heat. The plastic shell's side vents don't line up all that well with the ventilation holes that perforate the internal aluminum skin, either.

Around the back, the Qbic's plastic shell gives way to a more standard aluminum back plate. You'll notice that there is no rear exhaust fan directly pulling air from the case. Instead, the power supply is heavily vented, relying on an internal fan to direct air flow. The holes running down the left side of the back plate are exhaust ports for the cube's internal blower, which we'll get to in a minute.

Although the lack of a large rear exhaust port is a little unconventional, the Qbic's port cluster is pretty standard. I'm not sure that the cube needs two serial ports, though. I'd rather lose one of them and use the extra real estate to move the Qbic's digital S/PDIF audio output from the front of the cube to the rear.

The Qbic's most attractive rear panel feature is perhaps its smallest detail: the PCI/AGP card retention bracket. With most cubes, two screws must be loosened to remove the card bracket, but with the Qbic, only one needs to be removed to install an AGP graphics card.