Features:
The A381 is one of those products where the pictures on the website really don't do the product justice. I was happy with what I saw on the website but once I had the case unboxed and in my hands I was even happier with how things looked. It's a solid case, the entire body is made of steel and the front bezel is a beautifully brushed aluminum. To frame things up when your computer is installed, they even include an aluminum bezel to attach onto your CD/DVD drive tray so it doesn't "stand out" amongst the uniform front. As you can see from my pictures below, the optical drive occupies the right side of the case's front and the framed in VFD display takes up most of the left side. Below the display you'll find many media control buttons which work together with the large volume knob that's on the right side (reminds you of those expensive home theatre amps in terms of design). The flip down door underneath the optical drive reveals a built-in card reader (handy!), mic/speaker jacks and two USB2.0 ports. With the entire case as classy as it is, I was disappointed when the door hiding those ports just flopped down. It's basically a hinged piece of aluminum, there are no gears, springs or even latches to hold it in place and guide it down smoothly - it just falls when you open it.

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Both the left and right side of the case have 60mm cooling fans installed. These are blue LED fans which are certain to add some "ooh" and "awe" to your component rack when they are illuminated. They are rated at 1500rpm with a noise level of 19dBA, airflow is not given. Inside the case there is also a spot to attach a 60mm fan onto the hard drive cage as well, but no fan is included there because it's not necessary for most drives. The back half of the top cover is also vented by many long slits (also seen in my pictures below).

 
(Click above to enlarge)

Spinning the case around to the back you'll notice that because of the thin profile that the A381 has, it doesn't use standard sized PCI cards or a standard power supply. Any PCI, AGP or PCI-E cards you install in your system will need to be half-height cards. These are usually fairly easy to find online for component cards, but video cards can be a little more difficult. However, since it's designed for home theatre use most users will simply be using the onboard motherboard video anyway's so this shouldn't be an issue. The power supply is of the Flex-ATX form factor because of the smaller size that is required to fit into this slim case. The included power supply is 270W. Although it sounds like that isn't a lot, for the limited components you'll be running in a home theatre PC it is more than enough. You will likely only have power going to the motherboard, one optical drive and one hard drive - so 270W is plenty.