Following my review in Part 1 where I covered mostly the software aspect of Astromax, let me now talk about its physical aesthetics. I'll keep it short and sweet because in all honesty there isn't much to say about it.
The Pros:
It fits into the last vacant shelf of my AV cabinet
The Cons:
1. The red LED on the front panel is irritatingly distracting. Why does it have to be sooo RED, sooo COARSE and sooo BRIGHT until it kills the ambience of good movie watching. Where's the dimmer control? There's none.
2. No dedicated on-off AC power switch. If you have to reboot your Max as often as I do (which is about once every 3-4 days nowadays), you really don't want to grope the wires behind your AV cabinet, every time guessing which plug is wired to which component. Its just plumb dangerous.
3. The smart card when fully inserted sticks out by 1 cm. An accident waiting to happen.
4. The whole box design is so American. In other words boring, like something out of the 80's. And I thought the world has moved on to way-cool Euro/Japanese style design philosophies? I mean just look at how uninspiring Motorola phone designs are.
To make a long story short, I think Astromax's box design sucks. It sticks out like a sore thumb in my rack of AV electronics. Without an on-board power switch, it is a hassle to reboot and knowing how frequently the Max locks up, I wonder how in the world did they miss that out.
'Nuff said.
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