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FrontX



CPU-Central - Frontx Review

Author:

Tony Dao

FrontX 

 

Introduction

Frontx has been around for about a year and based out of Malaysia. Where they’ve come up with a product to keep your peripherals neat and out of the way, when not used. 

Frontx is designed to have various ports available in the front of the computer. The basic kit comes with earphone, microphone, audio-in and game/midi ports. The casing is convenient enough, where you can mix and match ports to your computing needs. Different ports that can be purchased separately are the USB and serial. Video and IEEE 1394 ports are expected to be available sometime before October 2001, and the parallel port at a later date.

Product

The casing fits nicely into a 5.25” drive bay where the cables run down and through a PCI/ISA opening. As you can see from the picture above, each port is removable and will always be upgradeable.

Users who like switching speakers to headphones and vice versa will find this much more convenient than crawling to the back of their PC to switch plugs. Insert the earphone plug into the jack; this will cut off your speakers. For the gamers who use joysticks, game pads and steering wheels, you have the ease of switching each peripheral without going to the back of the PC.One of the things I like about this product is that it has a useful purpose. You can literally plug and play. Having the options to add a USB or serial port is also good for any home user. I personally use it for my digital camera and won’t have the hassle of crawling to the back of my PC anymore.


 

Installation 

Installing the Frontx casing was like installing an IDE in its bay. To keep the cables together and organized inside my tower, I zip tied them and threaded it neatly down to a free PCI/ISA slot. Where I installed the custom plate and plugged the cables in their according sockets.

Final Thoughts

Pros
    Easy to install
    Convenience of adding/removing peripherals
    Mix and match specific ports

Cons
    Cables may be a little short for large towers
    No color Selection

The main feature that I like about this product, is that while plugging your headphones in the headphone jack it automatically cuts off your speakers. I also liked the fact that you can customize the Frontx casing to suit your computing needs, as apposed to having a fixed selection of ports. Overall I did not see any problems or flaws with this product. Now I won’t bang my head on the underside of the desk every time I look for that port to plug or unplug.

The Frontx kit can be purchased through their website at Frontx.com and is reasonably priced at $25.90 which includes shipping and handling. I would like to thank Susan for letting me review this product. Frontx has given exceptional customer care along with innovative product.
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