PC cases are very much a matter of personal taste and it is often the styling as much as the function that sells the product. This is especially true for a case like the one reviewed here, which has blue LED lighting on the front bezel and a styled clear perspex side window. However, even if you like the styling it’s nice to know whether or not it’s functionally decent too.

Introduction

Well I have to admit I was a bit concerned about the length of the title of this review but as this is the product description on ebuyer that’s what I’ve gone for. It’s one of these cases that’s been imported from the far east and for all those of us googling away there’s no information about who actually makes it let alone a dedicated website. Add to this the fact that the case arrived without any sort of instructions and it really is a bit of a mystery. Although this is much like the Eye-T ecute case that I reviewed in May 08, the box had the Eye-T brand on it but I’ve never tracked them down on the web.

This isn’t to say that it’s a case to avoid, not at all. Sure it’s not up to the quality of a Silverstone or Lian-Li case and you won’t get the equivalent manufacturer support but at £29.99 from ebuyer with an included 450W power supply it’s definitely aimed at a different section of the market.

Take a Closer Look

So lets start with a quick run down of the basic specs, this is an ATX mid-tower case and the dimensions are as follows:

• Height – 410
• Width – 200
• Depth – 480

It has space for four 5.25″ externally accessible drives such as DVD drives, two more 3.5″ external spaces and four internal 3.5″ bays for all your hard drives. As with all ATX mid-tower cases there are 7 removable blanking plates for expansion cards.

The bare frame of the case showing drive bays, fan mounts etc

The blue lighting and the side window combine to create the visual effect for this case and on that side window there’s one 80 mm blue LED fan. On the rear of the case there’s also a mount for an additional 80, 92 or 120 mm fan, I find it disappointing that a similarly blue fan isn’t provided for this mount and I would expect that all PC builders would want to add a fan in here. Not only does the case look a bit odd without a fan fitted to this mount but it also leaves the power supply fan as the only exhaust fan in the case and if you install hot running components like a quad core CPU or high end graphics cards then the power supply would quickly get very hot.

At the front of the case there are two 80 mm fan mounts to add an additional two fans as intake fans. This seems like a good idea until you consider that the front bezel doesn’t really have any vents cut into it so the fans would really struggle to draw any amount of air into the case from this position.

With just the side panel removed

As part of the front bezel at the bottom there’s a flap which reveals a pair of USB ports, a microphone socket and a headphone socket, the flap doesn’t do anything fancy, it’s not spring loaded or fitted with magnets it just opens and closes and feels quite cheap. A little further up you’ll find the power and reset buttons, this is a good place for these as it puts the cables at the same level as where most motherboards have their front panel header this should aid with good cable management. The button right at the top of the front is an on/off button for the lights, so that you can have the PC on without the bright glow. Particularly useful when watching a film or catching up on TV with iplayer.

Installation

It’s funny really, as you don’t actually install a case. You install all your appropriate components into the case but it’s often the case that makes this easy or difficult. Being a mid-tower case it does mean that fitting the motherboard is going to be tight especially if you’ve chosen a full ATX board so bear in mind that you might want to fit the CPU, cooler and memory to the motherboard outside of the case first. Also any drives that need to be fitted may be difficult to slot in when the motherboard is already in place, especially if the motherboard has significant heatsinks, so fit these first too. The final procedure that will be hampered by the size of the case is fitting the front panel header connectors for LEDs and switches etc. Unfortunately there’s no trick to fitting these unless you are fortunate enough to have a motherboard with ASUS’s Q-Connect or equivalent.

The case is supplied with a bag of screws for fitting drives and the side panels are held in place by thumbscrews. In the screw bag you will also find a set of bronze standoffs which are very important and must be fitted to the case before screwing in the motherboard. In most cases these are already fitted which prevents the potentially costly mistake of fitting the motherboard directly onto the metal panel. The front bezel attaches and detaches from the frame quite securely and it marrys up well with any drives that are fitted, although it may take a little wiggling to obtain that perfect fit. The finish to the internal frame is pretty good considering the cost of the case, I didn’t come across any sharp edges or parts to cut yourself on. Mostly the metal has been finished by folding the edges over which give a neat and safe overall effect.

With the opposite side panel removed showing cable management options

Cable management is surprisingly good in this case. I don’t know if it’s intentional from the manufacturers or just the way it’s turned out but there’s a good amount of space above the highest 5.25″ bay to hide away excess power supply cables and there’s also a good amount of space behind the 3.5″ hard drive bays to hide and tie up fitted cables and keep them out of sight from the window. The side panel on the opposite side of the case is easily removed so that this area is accessible for tying up those cables.

You do get a power supply included with this case, it’s a 450W model and it’s made by WinPower. However it feels extremely light and flimsy and I really wouldn’t want to try loading it with anything near 450W. In fact unless you are really strapped for cash I’d recommend buying an alternative such as the Be Quiet 350W Pure Power that I reviewed last week.

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