External Appearance - Continued
The entire outer skin of the X11 is high-grade brushed aluminium, the build quality of which is exceptional. The only removable panel on the outside of the X11 is the lid, secured in place with two screws on both sides and a single at the back.
Countersunk into the lid, the screws are very small and quite sharp round the edges; if you have fat fingers like this hack then a magnetic screwdriver is definitely needed.
The inside of the lid is lined with foam tape, intended to aid the acoustic performance of the X11. During our tests the sound emanating from the chassis was pretty quiet, but care should be taken when fitting the lid, over-tightening causes it to bow upwards resulting in unwanted vibrations throughout the case.
Behind the flap on the front of the chassis are the X11’s external ports. The usual fare is here with two USB, one FireWire, audio and microphone ports, respectively.
In addition, space is provided for a single floppy drive or media reader, but removing the face plate for it could be a make-or-break moment for the look of your X11.
In the accessories box we find the usual bag of screws and a couple of cable ties, along with the optical drive cover which is branded with a DVD-ROM logo.
Rather than have a flap or require a silver-coloured drive this method involves you unclipping the end cap on your optical drive tray and sticking the aluminium plate in its place.
Whilst the quality of the plate and its intentions are all well and good, it has to be said it’s not the easiest of things to do right. and over time these types of solutions tend to need correction.
We would have preferred to see the use of a flap on the chassis, purely because the tight fit of this stick-on plate can potentially cause damage to your optical drive, or, even worse, scratch the front panel of the X11.
Additionally, it means the first thing you should fit when building the chassis is the optical drive, otherwise you’ll run into problems down the line.