Akasa this Computex unveiled half a dozen new premium cases for congested desks and living rooms, which make use of copious amounts of aluminium to both look good and stay cool without any moving parts (read: fans). The Dot and Gem made us go "awww" first. The Dot looks like a Lego brick that spent too much time in Pripyat (although not as big as a real brick itself). It can house several models of Raspberry Pi, ASUS Tinker Board, and ODROID-C2, which are ARM-based "makerboards." You also get an included SD card reader, and room for a Hi-Fi Berry DAC board to go with your Pi. The Gem has a nearly identical design, but with an eclectic top plate design.

The Skytale and Skytale-X, obviously so-named to catch PC enthusiasts' eyes as they passed by the booth, are sleek, silvery-aluminium HTPC cases with a monolithic design (as opposed to heatsink ridges sticking out of the sides). With a height of just 50 mm, both cases are designed for mini-ITX motherboards that needn't be thin. What sets the two apart is the presence of a full-height add-on card slot on the Skytale-X, which uses a PCIe riser. Lastly, we spotted a new variant of the Turing case Akasa launched in February, which comes in a racy shade of blue.