6. Case And Connectors, Continued

There aren't too many of these relatively new I/O cards available on the market as yet, but this could quickly change. For now, arguably the most interesting Express Card product currently available is the TV card from AverMedia, known as the AverMedia ExpressCard TV Tuner.

The right side of the case includes audio jacks, two USB 2.0 ports, an Express Card slot and the slide-out drawer for the optical drive.

The left side of the case is fully stocked with connectors of various types. However, the positioning of the four USB ports could be better. If you want to work with the mouse and plug it into one of the two ports on the right hand side, the cable gets in the way. Plug it in on the left, on the other hand, and you have to route the mouse cable around the back of the case.

The positioning of USB ports makes working with an external mouse difficult.

The large palm rest on the keyboard deck hides two Altec Lansing loudspeakers. But there is still enough room to accommodate two hard disks.

On the left side of the case you'll find a VGA connector, an S-Video output, a 100 MBps Ethernet port, a docking station port, two USB ports, a Firewire port, a mini PCI slot and a 6-in-1 memory card reader.