Although small, most SFF PCs have a wealth of connectors available to hook up your external devices, usually located at both the back and the front of the SFF PC. AOpen’ XC cube doesn’t disappoint here either. As mentioned the front connectors are hidden behind a hinged door where we find an optical digital output, headphone, microphone two usb 2.0 and two firewire connectors. On the back of the AOpen XC cube we find two ps2 connectors, a serial- and parallel port connector and a vga-out. We also see a composite video-out connector which is a nice touch for those wanting to use the XC cube to play games, or watch a movie on a TV. Naturally we also find a network connector, an usb and firewire and three audio connectors and an optical digital input connector at the back.



Fig 2. A look at the connectors found at the front and the back of AOpen's XC cube.
The idea behind having a large number of connectors on both the front and the back of the SFF PC is to prevent you from having to fiddle around at the back to connect an external device. Most devices can simply be connected to the front of the PC with little effort. Many of the connections you want to make permanently, such as a network cable, printer, keyboard and mouse, and obviously vga-out, are located at the back of the PC. When the front connectors are not in use, the hinged lid can be closed which gives the XC cube a sleek, stylish look, without having to look at connectors when they’re not in use.