Beautiful Wooden PC Cases 153
mrbill submitted linkage to a site offering to sell what appear to be very beautiful wood PC cases combining wood, glass and silicon into something a hell of a lot prettier than that beige box. Something tells me these wouldn't win the recent Intel sexy case contest, but they sure are sharp.
The Fossil Computer (Score:4, Interesting)
It's now my daughter's computer, so it plays more Dora the Explorer than the latest high-end games. When I replace my main computer, I'll gut it and put in fancy new components. The main draw is that it's silent, with the main issue being heat (I have some big, slow fans to help with that).
Wood warping (Score:4, Interesting)
Looks nice... (Score:4, Interesting)
Easily beaten (Score:2, Interesting)
1) Go with carpenter to select wood from source provider
2) Agree on external chassis specs
3) Argue for 15 min on price
4) $200, and you're robbing yourself
5) hammers and splinters and...
6) Profit!
Re:luxury items: price is what people want to pay (Score:2, Interesting)
(I'm not disagreeing with you, just pointing out other perspectives since the quality of the violin is more than just what it's made of)
Re:"Couldn't these catch fire?" (Score:2, Interesting)
quoted from their webpage's specs section:
" Thermaltake Big Water SE Liquid Cooling System
Thermaltake Aquarius VGA Water Block
500cc bottle of UV sensitive high performance coolant and filler syringe"
sweet release (Score:1, Interesting)
Dejavue (Score:2, Interesting)
here's a picture of the humidor: http://images10.newegg.com/UploadFilesForNewegg/h
Price reflection of change. (Score:1, Interesting)
Um, no they don't. Your argument leaves out a couple things. First there are one-time start-up costs that needs to be dispensed with, and the manufacturer is going to try to get rid of them as soon as possible. Second there's process improvements over the lifecycle of a product. The product gets made cheaper and better maybe by using a new injection molding technique on the cases for example. Or the circuit board layout is improved through consolidation, or a more efficient design. The materials can change. The outside appearance and fuctionality can stay the same, but not the insides or the process used to create them.
"How much it's worth might be closer to thinking about the craftsman's hourly rate and thinking about how many hours work is in there, and double whatever you come up with to allow for workshop costs etc."
Apparently your market doesn't have the concept of R&D. Nor the idea that a company needs a certain amount to even out the bumps in it's market. e.g. savings. Let alone it's future obligations. e.g. employee retirement. Being in business isn't about break-even.
Re:Looks are unimportant for a computer (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree that computers shouldn't need to look extraordinary, and if anything, should try to be unseen.
That is exactly what some of these wooden cases do, they mask the PC behind a nice wooden cover, designed to look like a table, or decorative piece, or other piece of furniture.
One of the best home mod wooden pc cases I have seen was for a media center, and it was actually built into some sort of nice looking wooden table (perhaps an old sewing table where the sewing machine drops down into the table) which also became the tv stand for which the media pc was being used.