Form:

Style is the Z-10's opening gambit, and it's a strong one. The two speakers stand at an appealingly sleek angle and boast glossy black front plates that are very en vogue at the moment, and while a glossy black finish is never afraid to pick up fingerprints, I haven't found mine getting too terribly greasy. The included shammy was also a nice touch.

A one-inch tweeter and a three-inch woofer rest comfortably in each speaker, and a single cable connects the pair - in turn connected to your PC with a USB connection, bypassing your sound card entirely. The right speaker holds the orange-backlit touch-sensitive controls, and while I usually appreciate tactile feedback the Z-10's standard controls worked better than I anticipated, and now I love them. (Controls are on/off, mute, volume and level controls, playback controls, four context-sensitive display buttons and a display toggle to switch between date & time, song info, etc.)

Function:

The Z-10's display options are robust if you're a PC user, but nonexistent on a Mac - although the speakers still work on a Mac. On a PC you can see CPU usage, get e-mail alerts via a POP3 monitor, check out a nifty clock with day of the week/month info (which a scatterbrain like yours tinily finds quite helpful), and see artist/track info for your music - provided you're running iTunes, Winamp, Musicmatch Jukebox, Windows Media Player or RealPlayer. That's a fairly wide net, but those who prefer a different player won't be able to access and control their media from the speaker controls. Four numbered buttons can also be preset to your favorite internet radio stations.

Games. Oh games! Here the Z-10 really shines - lauch World of Warcraft and you'll discover your speakers displaying your character's stats. It doesn't stop there. Four preset stat displays switch between displaying melee, ranged and spellcasting statistics and a fourth display for melee defense stats. Toggle between the four with the first numbered context-sensitive button. The second button switches to a freaking battleground display. Gamers - consider yourselves courted.

The stats display worked with other games as well - Neverwinter Nights 2 and Lord of the Rings Online both worked flawlessly - the former displayed each character's stats when selected, while LotRO behaved similarly. For gamers, this is potentially a system-selling feature - I absolutely love it, although it doesn't work with every game.

Sound, of course, is the ultimate point of a pair of desktop speakers, and the Z-10 succeeds there as well, with sound much larger than I'm used to from PC speakers. Some might miss a subwoofer, but the bass is less bouncy than you might fear while still filling the room. I've had impressive volume as well, although of course it's nothing like you'd hear in more powerful dedicated audio systems - but for a pair of speakers meant to be used relatively close to your face, the Z-10 kicks butt.

One thing I didn't anticipate: since the Z-10 are USB speakers, they'll bypass your audio card and register as their own sound device, which means you'll need to change your audio device settings on some programs. I haven't noticed anything remotely negative from this aspect, but it does render your audio card relatively useless as an output device (and if you have a USB microphone or headset, does away with the need for a sound card entirely).

Bottom Line:

If you're in the market for new PC speakers and don't want a bulky subwoofer, the Z-10 Interactive Speaker System is a great choice widely available for nearly half of its $149.99 listed price. It'll sound great and class up the joint while offering some cool additional display options courtesy of the neat LCD screen.