1. Introduction

With all the coverage that the Shuttle SS51G has garnered for itself, it’s been easy to overlook other vendors out there with Small Form Factor (SFF) offerings. Today we’re going to introduce an offering from Soldam Corporation which some of you may have heard of. Based in Ota City, Japan, Soldam has been slowly making a name for itself within the SFF community with very sleek looking cases and innovate ideas for the PC world. Unfortunately the fact that Soldam is located in Japan has deterred many here in the US from purchasing their products due to the high shipping charges. Putting that aside, I thought it would be nice to check out one of their recent offerings – the Pandora Quatre. This barebones system is based off of the same motherboard used by the Shuttle SS51G – namely the Shuttle FS51 FlexATX motherboard. With the internal guts being the same, what does the Quatre offer that is different from the SS51G besides a higher stick price? Let’s find out!

1.1 Soldam Corporate Info

I thought I would spend a little time describing Soldam Corporation since it’s such a small name in the computing industry here in the United States. Soldam was founded in 1998 and has been specializing in developing CPU coolers, cases and accessories. They also help out with system installation and management as well as some IT training for customers. Recently they have followed Shuttle by developing small form factor cases using Shuttle motherboards. Soldam is based in Ota City, Gunman prefecture Japan, right north of Tokyo. Their main Japanese website is located at http://www.soldam.co.jp. The Japanese site contains all the latest products that are not necessarily available here in the US. For a list of the US products, check out their US website at http://www.soldam.com.