Ogling the iDEQ
For starters, we put the iDEQ 200P side by side with Shuttle XPC SN45G for a comparison shot.

The rivals shoulder to shoulder

As you can see, the iDEQ and XPC share very similar dimensions in terms of height and width, but the iDEQ is just under an inch deeper than the XPC. In SFF systems, smaller is generally better, but I don't consider the iDEQ's extra depth a serious inconvenience. Nobody's going to forget and call it a "cube," though.

Up front, the 200P has a prominent power button, a well-protected reset button, and an array of useful ports. The optical audio port you see is an input, as it should be. There's also a Firewire port and dual USB 2.0 connectors.

The iDEQ's drive bay cover slides down to reveal... ack! ..an ugly beige CD-ROM drive! Better taste in peripherals might be recommended, but with the iDEQ, it's not necessary. Notice how the sliding cover stops just where it should to avoid cutting off access to the port array.

Out back, the iDEQ 200P looks similar to most modern mini-PCs, with all the standard ports. There is no parallel port, but Biostar has almost been overly generous with serial ports, probably because the 200P doesn't have any VGA outputs. (The slot cover is marked as if one or both of the serial ports were VGA ports.) You also see cutouts across the middle of the rear panel for what I presume would be parallel ports and the like, but Biostar doesn't include any hardware with the 200P for populating these spaces.