Introduction

I would like to thank Glacialtech for supplying the review sample.

Their website sums up their history quite nicely:

GlacialTech Inc. was established in June 2001 by a team of 8 world-class researchers (PHDs) and three factory owners. Its technological areas of expertise include specialized thermal theory, soldering and mounting technologies, mechanism design, test and verification environment build-up and advanced conduct material development.

As a total thermal solution provider, GlacialTech is committed to using lighter weight materials, lower noise and lower manufacturing cost to deliver superior cooling solutions. All this has brought about the increased value for our customers with lighter system board loading, quiet working environment and optimal price performance. Price performance, noise performance and weight performance are our three cooling design philosophy. Having acquired ISO 9001 and 14001, GlacialTech commits itself to using green materials for its products designs and to perfecting green manufacturing processes in manufacturing its products.

GlacialTech offers two kinds of standard and customized cooling solutions. The standard cooling solutions deal with the CPU coolers for desktop and server PC system, PC case fan, VGA coolers and other accessory cooling products. The customized cooling solutions are furnished with applications for specialized PC barebones system, notebook, consumer products and telecommunication products.

We have the chance to take a close look at their first HTPC enclosure by the name of Altair A380. When first seeing the name I had to think of the Airbus A380 right of the bat. The enclosure is available in black and silver.

Features:

• Home theater appearance
• Noble Aluminum chassis design
• Low down inside temperature with best airflow design
• Remote control support Microsoft Vista
• IR receiver support remote control, wireless keyboard, and wireless mouse
• Front I/O port for easy access
• Chassis bracket for horizontal or vertical application

Packaging

Glacialtech ships the case in a very nicely designed package. It has an image of the case on the side and also lists some of the case features. None of the sides hold any other valuable information. There are cut-outs on two sides to act as handles, so that you can easily carry the box home with you. Upon opening the package, the first thing you will see is a fairly large brown box with the additional contents of the A380.


The chassis itself is protected by large foam spacers. A heavy duty plastic back further protects the enclosure from scratches and other light damage. Even though the shipping carrier did not handle the goods with care, the case arrived in flawless condition.

Contents

Inside the brown box you will find a large set of extras that come bundled with the A380. The most notable are various IR receivers as well as an MCE remote. Even though the little pamphlet that comes with the remote does mention Vista compatibikty, the remote control unit itself is not the new kind, officially associated with Windows Vista. A manual, a bag of screws and the drive bay cover round up the package.