Arcade PC Mini Cabinet by HanaHo Games, Inc.

After much anticipation, my Arcade PC was delivered to my office on Friday.  I had planned to take it home immediately, but my co-workers convinced me to leave it in the office "for a few days so we can check it out". How good is this product - my unit was set up Monday morning and by Monday evening, two more units had been ordered from HanaHo (one by a co-worker and one for
our lunch room). This is a testimonial to how good the Arcade PC is.

The unit looks very sharp. It looks like a standard standup arcade console complete with marquee etc. An early photograph can be found at http://www.hanaho.com/products/ArcadePC/. The final unit looks much better - The marquee artwork is better and there is artwork on the joystick panel.

** saint's note.  Check out this picture for an updated look! **

Underneath the joystick panel is a hidden drawer for keyboard and mouse.  This tucks away during game play so does not get in your way at all.  Speakers are built into the marquee with a volume control easily accessible.  Several people came into my office and had no idea that this was not a "true" arcade unit but rather was an emulator cabinet.

You should be aware that the unit is several inches shorter than a standard standup arcade console. This allows the unit to be played sitting in a chair. The unit comes with four independent feet for leveling and can easily be placed on a stand of some sort if you want it at full height.

Simply put, the unit looks fantastic. My machine will go into my game room and make my Pole Position and Card Player pinball look like beat up relics.

Enough about the great aesthetics - how does it play? In a word - Awesome.  The control panel is a mounted version of the HanaHo hot rod http://www.hanaho.com/products/HotRodJoystick/. There are several reviews of this unit on the net and all that I have read are outstanding. The
HotRod plugs into the keyboard port on your computer and the keyboard plugs into the HotRod. This makes changing the default configurations very easy.  Each HotRod button and controller direction has a predetermined keyboard equivalent (e.g. the top left button is "L Ctrl"). To change a game's default buttons you don't have to remember what keys are mapped to which buttons. Simply bring up the configuration screen ("Tab" in MAME) select the setting you want to reconfigure and hit the button you want to use.

I think that the unit is priced very reasonably. The cost of my unit was $1,000. $200 for the HotRodSE version and $800 for the cabinet. The cabinet price includes the built-in monitor. The unit was paletted, strapped down and packaged appropriately. It survived its trip from California to Canada without incident.  The guys at HanaHo are great to deal with. They kept me
in the loop during construction and were always quick to respond to e-mail and telephone calls.

If anyone has a specific question that was not addressed above, please feel free to e-mail me.

Tim Jackson
Toronto, Canada

Sounds great, thanks Tim!