A visually stunning 19" rack mount enclosure.

If you didn't know better, you might mistake Silverstone's new case for a member of its well-known home theater PC case line-up, designed for home use. In fact, the primary target for the LaScala LC18 is the server room, not the living room. This attractive model uses a 19" form factor that fits nicely into any server cabinet or rack enclosure.

On the front side of this light aluminum case you'll find a 7" touch screen, intended to replace the monitor that typically occupies a shelf in most server cabinets. The unit does work with external display devices as well, though the touch screen permits Windows and Linux to work without a mouse. Moving a finger across the screen stands in for mouse movement, and a quick double-tap on the screen works just like a double-click on the left mouse button.

Still, you can't expect too much from this small display. Simple dialogs or confirmations are about all it can handle: text processing or games really don't work in this format. The final version of this device should support resolutions up to 800x600 pixels (the current version supports only 640x480). Because the 7" diagonal screen is so small, finger touches aren't always precise enough to position the cursor accurately. This shortcoming makes adding a real mouse necessary even though the unit is designed to work without one.

Nice to see: the Windows XP boot screen

Greetings from the FBI: Fingerprints are easy to identify

Right now you must make do with viewable resolution of only 640x400 pixels, though this may be a shortcoming specific to our pre-release model. Later, Silverstone expects to use a better touch panel instead, boosting the resolution to 800x600. That's why the icons on our test unit were pretty tiny, and also why DVD playback on the screen is more of a gimmick than a useful function.