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- 22 Jan 2010
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Right so I've had this case a number of months now and I had originally planned to do a build log and case review when I put it all together but ran into problems and the memory card on my camera filled up, so I somewhat lost the urge to live half way through.
I haven't seen any other threads reviewing the case so I will give a brief over view of my experience of it.
Good things:
*Looks quite nice once it's together and on my desk. The aluminum case is very sleek and it gets commented on quite a lot by people who see it.
*Small enough for me to put in a sport bag and move around.
*Clever use of space means you can fit pretty much any component you like with some careful thinking.
*Good cooling for a small case
Bad things:
*Mother board stand off... I couldn't actually believe this happened but the stand offs turned out to be small enough to get jammed into the screw holes on the motherboard and I didn't think I eve tightened them that much. I spent about 30 minutes trying to pry the mother board off before a gave up and it's still jammed onto the tray as I type this. I will tackle it when I come to change board so if I break it it wont be so annoying.
*Sides and top panel, it's one singular piece of metal. I'm not sure why they didn't make it 3 separate pieces that slotted together because it means lifting it of the chassis you have to kind of bend the side out a bit to try and avoid scratching against the chassis, which they will do anyway and it takes the paint off! Although not in areas that can be seen through the window once it's back on. It also means the sides are slightly bent out which you can notice if you look for it when it's back together.
*This is the silliest one, how this didn't come when they were making prototypes I have no idea. the 2 usb ports and the audio/mic jacks on the side of the case. The usb ports work fine but the side plates being quite thick means that once you put them on the audio jacks are too recessed to be used! Not something I expected from a £150 case!
*power button is really wobbly and feels very cheap and can actually get stuck, smaller reset buttons is fine. Possibly something that could be fixed with some glue.
*Disk eject button doesn't look very good which is a shame because the rest of the front looks very sleek.
Other things worth mentioning:
*Ram with tall heat sinks will get in the way of the hard drive cage which is however easily removable. There's also holes in the bottom of the cd drive cage that you can attach a 2.5" drive too which is where my ssd went and after much thinking I attached my mechanical driver to the side my psu using velcro pads which actually works very well and seems to have a noise dampening effect!
*The power led is really bright! I have to stack things up in front of it when I go to bed because it's so bright especially annoying when it's flashing in sleep mode. Might just un-plug it.
*Couldn't fit both fans on my eco radiator for push pull
*My PSU was actually slightly too big, the does line up with hole quite right but enough so that it can draw air in and it blocks off the hole for a 92mm intake fan at the front but I suppose the good thing is that even though it is technically too big it still fits which I suppose is the best thing about his case. Even things that don't really fit, do, with some compromising.
Note on customer service I emailed their EU office about my motherboard getting jammed on the stand offs. I don't have the original e-mail but the gist of it was that they were aware this could be a problem on mother board with "larger holes" and that I should try wedging something under the motherboard to get it free. They didn't seem at all bothered to be perfectly honest and I felt a bit put out. I like to put this down to their EU base being in France though. Maybe I should have tried contacting their US office.
Final thoughts "£150 for a micro atx case, thats more than I payed for my Antec 1200 and that's a full tower!" is what I thought to my self when I pressed the check out button and at that point for a £150 I was expecting a fully functional finished case with no major flaws and thats not what I got. Some of you probably think I'm mad for not sending it back but apart from the fact that my only motherboard was still stuck to it and posting that much metal back to France is expensive and a hassle the problem is that there isn't really anything else to take it's place. If you want a compact case that can fit all the high end parts then there isn't really anything else that fits the bill in quite the same way and if you can get over the annoying quirks then its actually quite a nice case once it' sitting on your desk.
I'll upload some pictures tomorrow, if you're lucky.
I haven't seen any other threads reviewing the case so I will give a brief over view of my experience of it.
Good things:
*Looks quite nice once it's together and on my desk. The aluminum case is very sleek and it gets commented on quite a lot by people who see it.
*Small enough for me to put in a sport bag and move around.
*Clever use of space means you can fit pretty much any component you like with some careful thinking.
*Good cooling for a small case
Bad things:
*Mother board stand off... I couldn't actually believe this happened but the stand offs turned out to be small enough to get jammed into the screw holes on the motherboard and I didn't think I eve tightened them that much. I spent about 30 minutes trying to pry the mother board off before a gave up and it's still jammed onto the tray as I type this. I will tackle it when I come to change board so if I break it it wont be so annoying.
*Sides and top panel, it's one singular piece of metal. I'm not sure why they didn't make it 3 separate pieces that slotted together because it means lifting it of the chassis you have to kind of bend the side out a bit to try and avoid scratching against the chassis, which they will do anyway and it takes the paint off! Although not in areas that can be seen through the window once it's back on. It also means the sides are slightly bent out which you can notice if you look for it when it's back together.
*This is the silliest one, how this didn't come when they were making prototypes I have no idea. the 2 usb ports and the audio/mic jacks on the side of the case. The usb ports work fine but the side plates being quite thick means that once you put them on the audio jacks are too recessed to be used! Not something I expected from a £150 case!
*power button is really wobbly and feels very cheap and can actually get stuck, smaller reset buttons is fine. Possibly something that could be fixed with some glue.
*Disk eject button doesn't look very good which is a shame because the rest of the front looks very sleek.
Other things worth mentioning:
*Ram with tall heat sinks will get in the way of the hard drive cage which is however easily removable. There's also holes in the bottom of the cd drive cage that you can attach a 2.5" drive too which is where my ssd went and after much thinking I attached my mechanical driver to the side my psu using velcro pads which actually works very well and seems to have a noise dampening effect!
*The power led is really bright! I have to stack things up in front of it when I go to bed because it's so bright especially annoying when it's flashing in sleep mode. Might just un-plug it.
*Couldn't fit both fans on my eco radiator for push pull
*My PSU was actually slightly too big, the does line up with hole quite right but enough so that it can draw air in and it blocks off the hole for a 92mm intake fan at the front but I suppose the good thing is that even though it is technically too big it still fits which I suppose is the best thing about his case. Even things that don't really fit, do, with some compromising.
Note on customer service I emailed their EU office about my motherboard getting jammed on the stand offs. I don't have the original e-mail but the gist of it was that they were aware this could be a problem on mother board with "larger holes" and that I should try wedging something under the motherboard to get it free. They didn't seem at all bothered to be perfectly honest and I felt a bit put out. I like to put this down to their EU base being in France though. Maybe I should have tried contacting their US office.
Final thoughts "£150 for a micro atx case, thats more than I payed for my Antec 1200 and that's a full tower!" is what I thought to my self when I pressed the check out button and at that point for a £150 I was expecting a fully functional finished case with no major flaws and thats not what I got. Some of you probably think I'm mad for not sending it back but apart from the fact that my only motherboard was still stuck to it and posting that much metal back to France is expensive and a hassle the problem is that there isn't really anything else to take it's place. If you want a compact case that can fit all the high end parts then there isn't really anything else that fits the bill in quite the same way and if you can get over the annoying quirks then its actually quite a nice case once it' sitting on your desk.
I'll upload some pictures tomorrow, if you're lucky.
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