Installation

Let's get this party started. First, since we're smart (and have learned that not doing so results in destruction of expensive things), let's take a quick gander at the instructions. Alrighty then, if necessary, attach your drive rails, and slide her in a free 5.25" slot.

Now, normally you'd find a way to run the connector through the back of your computer and plug it into a USB port back there, like any other external USB device. Since Performance-PCs sent along this USB adapter, we can skip this step and simply plug the adapter into the internal USB header on the motherboard..

Then plug the USB connector from the unit into the female USB connector on the adapter. After this, Window's should detect the device and you should be all set and ready to... display information! Now, be sure to follow the provided installation guide sheet, and also refer to the Getting Started section on the Matrix Orbital Software CD before starting.

Usage

Now that we have the unit installed we're going to want some software to fully take advantage of its capabilities. This is the same software used by Matrix Orbital a year ago in the previous review, LCDC. It's the program of choice for many LCD users. Quite frankly, I have yet to come across a more functional and useful piece of LCD software. Best of all, it's free with purchase of the Matrix Orbital unit (normally $17.50).

The LCDC software has an ever-growing online community through the LCDC forums. While there, you can receive help with any difficulties you might be having. In addition, you may also swap tips and tricks with fellow users and even get to try out some of the newer "still-in-development" plug-ins from independent developers which are constantly figuring out cool and new ways to use LCDs. On top of all this the LCDC team remains hard at work coming out with new features to their software... You're not buying a soon to be outdated version of windows for hundreds of dollars. Hell, you're not really buying anything, it's included! But, you're getting LCDC and whatever LCDC will be years from now as well.

When power goes to this unit the screen on the left should appear. Once you decide to make things more interesting, you could go ahead and start up LCDC and start playing around with it. If you get bored, you could hop on the LCDC website and surf to the Downloads section where you might download a third party addon by CheeseKeeper, called "Hi-Resolution CPU Usage." This plug-in will display the percentage of your CPU usage and refreshes multiple times a second.

Later, I revisited the Downloads section and found a way to combine the Hi-Resolution CPU Usage plug-in with another one of CheeseKeeper's plug-ins, the Custom Bar Graph Module which gave me the ability to display the percentage in the form of a horizontal bar graph instead of a (now boring) percentage. Score!

The LCDC software gives you so much to do whatever you may want with. Above are just a few examples of what you can do with LCDC combined with the unit. Far left I displayed which track I'm playing in winamp with the Spectrum analyzer for the song directly below. More practical uses may be to monitor your internet traffic or keep tabs on how much disk space you may have left. However, the far right screen makes me sick at my stomach. I just bought that hard drive a few months ago. :(

Angle View

This is really the only fault I could find with the display. I found that the new backlit displays don't appear correctly while viewed at an angle, while reflective LCD's (ones that reflect light from an external source and don't require a backlight) don't have this problem. This is a rather common problem found on many displays and I'm sure there's a really good scientific explanation (or maybe there isn't, and I didn't try hard enough to find it), though if your interested I'm sure with enough research you can figure it out.

Conclusion

Matrix Orbital's step into USB wasn't a big one; there weren't a whole lot of significant changes I can read off a list. However, the changes that were made improved this unit just a ton. Higher quality and more user friendly products are what we like to see from the manufacturers, and Matrix Orbital Delivers. On the other hand, now that Matrix Orbital has made everything so easy with this LCD's, you're not that special anymore if you have one. But, chicks do dig the blue LCD, so you'll likely have that going for you.

The bottom line here is that this product will rarely serve any practical purpose for anyone. However, neither will CCFLs, window cut outs, or a nice looking wiring job.that you have on your case. It's another thing to have fun with, and for many will turn into a full fledged hobby.This is definitely a sure fire way to impress all your LAN buddies.

I'd like to give a big thanks to the guys at Performance-PCs and Matrix Orbitalfor setting this up and providing the unit for review. You may order the unit from Performance-PCs here, and also the Internal Header to Female Socket USB adapter here. Thanks again guys!

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