Xtreamer Prodigy

Despite the lack of display on the façade, the outer aluminum shell comes in either black or silver, and the lack of fan guarantees low noise levels. An internal 3.5-inch hard drive bay can fit desktop-sized hard drives of up to 3TB storage. Available at HD City Shop for B5,390.

Egreat R300

This black aluminum chassis comes with a touch-screen display for easy navigation and a bay on the side for up to 3TB hard drives. There’s also a SATA port that allows you to connect an additional hard drive to the device. Available at MacroCare for B5,290 without the built-in Wi-Fi and B5,790 with Wi-Fi.

HiMedia HD900B

The aluminum housing and the internal fan enable better heat dissipation but it does make a little noise. Still it is the cheapest 1186 option of the bunch. Available at HD Corner for B4,900.

Mede8er MED500X2

This actually runs on the older Realtek 1185 chipset. But if you don’t have a 3D TV and won’t be running Android apps on your TV, this is the cheapest option out there. Available at HD City Shop for B4,550.

Essentials

HD City Shop. B1/F (room #ITB042), Seacon Square, Srinakarin Rd., 082-658-9000, www.hdcityshop.com
MacroCare. Try 3/F (room #3E43-44), IT Mall Ratchadapisek, Ratchadapisek Rd., 02-641-0843/4. Visit www.mc.co.th for other branches.
HD Corner. Try B1/F, Pantip Plaza, 084-721-9990, 089-884-0488. Visit www.hdcorner.com for other branches.