Photos, The Box and Case Exterior
Alright alright I’ll show you some photos of this case. Starting with the box!
While unimpressive as far as bling goes there is something new an interesting here! Look at the “DO NOT DROP” label, it says “Please” and “Thank you”. What a concept! It seems to have been effective too, there isn’t much damage to the box.
Bit more bling here, though calling black on cardboard “bling” seems kind of silly. I actually really like simple boxes like this.
On the side is a specs list, and a nice big sticker telling us that I got the Window Version. In the little picture there are vents in the window, I find this interesting as I have not seen vents mentioned anywhere.
BitFenix went with soft foam rather than the standard hard foam. I like this, it does a better job of reducing G loading to the case.
Speaking of the case, you finally get to see it now!
Don’t expose barbarians to this case, it may cause them to develop civilization on the spot. All jokes aside this is a case that people will either love the look of or hate the look of, I don’t think there will be much middle ground.
Quite personally I really like it, I’ve always been a fan of imposingly industrial space age sci-fi type stuff and the Shinobi XL fits the bill perfectly.
Very little intake area here for that front fan, the grilled areas have holes under them so that helps, but for a 230mm fan? Not much. Under the front panel we see this:
On one hand having to manually break the bay covers off of a modern case annoys me. On the other hand they’re set up to mount a fan, which is pretty awesome.
This photo also gives you an idea of just how BIG the 230mm fan is, and it’s trying to breath through the two grilled slots and the slot in the next picture…
On the bottom we have the PSU’s intake area, with filter, and room for two 120mm fans. No fans come installed however. We do see a bit more intake area for the front fan. Still not enough in my opinion.
Here we have four grommeted openings for water cooling bits, a 120mm fan with room for a 140mm fan, as well as all the usual rear-of-the-case suspects.
If your motherboard puts the Ethernet plug right up at the top of the rear IO panel you’re going to have a grand old time trying to disconnect it, there is a fairly deep overhang right over the top of the rear IO panel.
The top however is almost all grill, lots of room for a water cooling radiator up here. The fan is installed towards the rear and pushes air out of the case. From the factory the case is set up for more exhaust airflow than intake airflow, for whatever that is worth.
We also see the power/reset buttons, USB ports and audio ports. Plus power and HDD LEDs. It is a nice clean layout just like the rest of the case. When you hit the power button (after installing some hardware…) the power and HDD LEDs make their appearance. They’re blue and BRIGHT. You can get an idea just how bright in the picture below (Note: I bent the USB port, not BitFenix or UPS. Oops):
The side panel is shiny, so you get a glimpse of my hand and camera for your entertainment. This window is HUGE. Pretty awesome. It also has a fair amount of innate static (not enough to kill things) that attracts cat hair like crazy. I think I’d prefer the solid sided case rather than the windowed, just to complete the monolith look.
