Mirror mirror, on the cube
Shuttle first introduced its "G4" chassis in September with the SN85G4. I wasn't a huge fan of the new G4 face plate then, but it's amazing what a little aesthetic tinkering can do. Instead of wrapping up the ST61G4 in the same black-and-grey outfit as the SN85G4, Shuttle dresses its latest cube to kill with a mirror face plate and clean silver exterior.
This guy kept sneaking into the picture. Sorry.
Slick.
Maybe I'm being shallow, or even a little vain, but I have to admit I'm smitten with the ST61G4's mirrored face plate. Unlike over-the-top cosmetic treatments that scream for attention, the mirrored face plate actually blends in quite nicely with the ST61G4's silver exterior. Of course, it's really hard to justify the mirror on its technical merit. Those who can't bear being torn away from their computers for even a few moments may end up using the mirror to shave, apply makeup, or even comb their hair, but that's stretching it as far as practical applications go.
As sexy as the ST61G4's exterior looks, all it takes is an optical drive to bring out the fashion police; black drives don't really match the ST61G4's aesthetic, and putting a beige drive into a system this gorgeous would really be a crime against art. A silver optical drive should solve the problem, but Shuttle could have skipped that whole mess by simply incorporating a sliding or hinged drive bay cover. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse for bringing up the drive bay cover yet again, but Shuttle keeps shipping great-looking cubes with seemingly no regard for how easily a beige optical drive can mar a cube's look.
Then again, Shuttle integrates a 6-in-1 media card reader perfectly. The memory card reader eats up an external 3.5" drive bay, so there's no room a floppy disk drive, but that seems like a pretty good trade-off to me. Besides, the ST61G4's motherboard still has a floppy port for those rare occasions where a floppy drive is necessary (installing Windows XP to a Serial ATA drive, for example).
Great for ventilation, but not keeping a system dust-free
The ST61G4's side panels are peppered with holes to give the cube's interior some much-needed ventilation. The holes allow cooler external air to pass into the system, but there's no filter to prevent dust from making its way into the case.
Booty
Around the back, the ST61G4 is loaded with expansion ports. All the usual suspects make an appearance, including VGA and S-Video output ports for the system's integrated graphics. Unlike Shuttle's nForce2-powered SN41G2, the ST61G4 has only one VGA output, which limits its multimonitor functionality without an auxiliary graphics card.
In the audio department, the ST61G4's port cluster has analog front, rear, and center output ports. The rear port cluster complements the ST61G4's array of front-mounted audio ports, which includes headphone, mic, and line-in jacks. For fans of all-digital audio, the ST61G4 also has digital S/PDIF input and output ports tucked away in the corner.
One Firewire and a couple of USB ports round out the ST61G4's rear port cluster. There's another Firewire port and two more USB ports up front, but that's it as far as connectivity goes. The system's two Firewire ports should be more than enough for most, but four USB ports may be too few for some users.
