Assembly

Installing the dock is quite easy. Simply slide it into place and secure it with the supplied screws. I used thumb screws, to show where these are attached. It would have been good if the unit were deep enough to utilize the additional screw holes in the rear of the bay just like an optical drive would, as this adds quite a bit of stability to things - especially if the chassis you are putting the device into does not allow for screws to be placed on one side of the bay. Upon mentioning this fact to Soundgraph, they said that that the short unit was meant to allow OEMs to incorporate it into their chassis without wasting precious space. While I understand that fact, the end user does not have any such constraint. Once in place, the next step is connecting the ATX power between mainboard and PSU cable, allowing the user to power on the PC with the press of a button on the remote control.


We received one of the first units ever produced, which turned out to include an audio bracket which was slightly too short. This should be fixed in the retail version of course. To give the user the audio functionality, a cable runs from the dock to the bracket, piping the tunes from the iDevice to the attached speakers or home theater - even when the PC system is off.

Use

Once everything is in place, the unit makes a good impression. Flipping it down once inside a chassis is quite easy and even though the iPad 2 and cover clock in at well over 700 grams, the Smartbay does not bulk under the pressure.


Overall, even though I placed the unit in the very bottom bay, the iPad still extends well beyond the chassis exterior. There are pretty much no HTPC chassis out there with a 5.25" bay at the bottom & center of the front. Most with such a bay are to the left or right, or - if centered - at the very top edge. This means, that there is no ideal chassis out there currently. Soundgraph is working hard to provide stylish HTPC cases intended for the dock in the near future.