External appearance – front and underside
In place of a bright silver and black colour scheme, there's a gunmetal grey and black finish that oozes quality. You may recall that we had some quality issues with the RC1000 we reviewed last year, especially after the couriers had given it a good seeing-to, but the RC1100 is in a quite different league.
The quality of the plastics feels much better to the touch, with a gloss finish being applied to the top front section. Gone, too, is the door. You either love them or hate them but we reckon that the RC1100 is a lot better without one - a mesh is applied to each of the ten 5.25in panels on the front instead.
Although there are ten drive panels in total, only seven are fronting drive bays - none of them 3.5in, so a bigger bay will have to be used for a floppy drive if needed. At the top edge, the panels are separated from the button-and-port area by a simple Knight Rider-style red stripe.
On the bottom, there's a plastic panel reminiscent of the rear diffuser found on some of today's super-cars.