The Basics:
Looking at the front of the case you can see it has a nice clean look. The door is all aluminum, and certainly feels that way, as it is heavy enough to give it a well built feel. Opening the door, you can see the drive bays. In this view it appears that there are eight 5.25" drive bays and one 3.5" bay. Upon further inspection, I did find there are only five 5.25" bays, the other three bays are reserved for a 120mm intake fan (which you could remove if you needed those bays). As you can see, the drive bay covers are not solid, and have many holes, which should allow some additional airflow. If you look closely you can see the tiny magnets that hold the door shut. These are strong and will keep the door shut tightly. I held the case with the door pointed at the ground and it did not open, even when I shook the case trying to pop the door.
 
Turning the case to the motherboard side panel, you can see the big circular opening I mentioned previously. This would be a nice place for a huge fan, like the one Thermaltake has for the Armor case. You can also see the front USB 2.0, headphone/microphone and 1394 ports. If you look really closely, you can see the tool-less slide locks for the side panel. Slide these up or down, and it unlocks the case.
Turning to the opposite side, you can see it is plain, with 8 holes at the front. These holes allow you to install a screw to keep your drives secured from both sides without removing the side panel. You can also see how easily fingerprints are transferred to this case. While it does not have a high gloss shine, fingerprints do show up very well.
When I was looking at the front of the case, I noticed the power button next to the 3.5" bay. That is not the only power button, though. On the top of the case there is another power button as well as two LEDs that are indicators for power and hard drive activity. Be careful with these LEDs as they pop out very easily. If they do pop out you can push them back into place just as easily.
Removing the side panel, you can see the interior of the case. I will go over several of the items that caught my attention.
|
|
