home | reviews | articles | price crusher | spotlight | case gallery | the team | forum

03 September 2010 

1/1 

Our good friends at Beantech have supplied us with one of their BT-82 Clear Cases to review. Bean tech are know for their affordable aluminium cases, but have ventured into the world of clear cases and I have to say with great success. They are also pioneers of the HDD Mobile Rack with Shock Absorber. I will be reviewing one of these next.

case specs:

The BT-82 Crystal Clear Acrylic case is a mid tower case and allows you to use a total of 11 Device Bays:
4X5.25” and 2X3.5” which opens at the front of the case and has 5X3.5” inside bays.
Three 80mm Cooling Fans, one at the front of case, one at rear and also one in the side panel provide ample airflow and powerful cooling for all drives. It also features 2x 2.0 USB ports and 1x Fire wire port on the bottom of the front panel. Both side panels are removable, to help with working on the case.


on with the review:

This case came to me very well packaged, the case itself was covered in a thick wrap with a warning sticker that said that the case had be thoroughly looked over for scratches and by removing the wrapping you have accepted that the case is free from any defects. I then took some pictures of the case for this review, in some of my pictures I have held card behind so that you can make out certain things, as taking pictures of a clear case isn't the easiest thing in the world to do.

When I removed all the protective wrapping, I checked the case over to see if I missed any scratches that may have been on the case, I am glad to say their was not a single mark or fingerprint on this case.

This case features 3x 80mm clear case fans, 1 on the front, 1 on the rear and 1 side panel fans. I have to say these fans are made by Evercool and are pretty quiet. I had a look on Evercool's site and pulled off a few specs for you guys so you can see for yourselves:

I noticed that the side panel fan was extracting air from the case, but I prefer them to be the other way round and blowing air into the case. It's not a hard job to do just a case of undoing the 4 fan screws and turning the fan round. Each of the 3 case fans have been fitted with gold fan grills on the inside so you don't loose any fingers when working on the case, I would have preferred these to be chrome but I am not going to complain as it makes a change for a case manufacturer to use their initiative and supply them. This case could do with a Top extract fan, as a lot of hot air will get trapped at the top, not a biggie if you are brave enough to attempt cutting a hole in you nice new acrylic case. The fan grills that have been cut into the case have a lovely finish, but the grill opening could have been made a little bit bigger.

The ATX I/O Shield and the PCI slots have been made from very thin acrylic instead of the usual metal ones you find on most clear cases. The Acrylic I/O shield can be removed if you still want to use a metal one, it is just a case of getting a craft knife and cutting a couple of lugs that are holding the shield in place.

The front of the case features 4x 5.25” bays and 2x 3.5” bays; these are covered by clear bezels that are nice and flush with the case itself. The bezels are held on by 1 screw each side of the bezel these are accessible by removing the side panels.

Also on the front panel are the power, reset switch and the power, HDD LEDs. The LEDs are a standard yellow and green, it would have been better if these were ultra bright red and blue, this will be the first small mod I am going to do to this case. At the bottom of the front panel there are 2x 2.0 USB ports and a Fire Wire port, these are becoming almost standard on all cases now.

The wire that lead from the back of the ports are silver braided and are covered in a clear outer casing. On the end of the USB wires are lots of small connectors, these connect to your motherboard to enable the front ports to work. You need to consult you motherboard manual as to how to connect these. The wire that leads from the Fire Wire port is theoretically an extension lead, is goes through an opening in the back of the case and plugs into your existing Fire Wire port. As I don't use Fire Wire I am going to disconnect this cable, this way I can help keep the case clutter free.

The motherboard tray is non removable so it is hard work working inside this case, the reason being that acrylic scratch very easily and the slightest little mark will show a mile away. You get a good selection of screws and some standoffs for your motherboard; the standoffs are made from plastic and are very easy to fit.

The holes that have been drilled in the motherboard tray have been set out for both AT and ATX form factor so you got no worries about if your motherboard is going to fit.

Here are a few pictures of the case set up temporarily with a blue cold cathode installed:

conclusion:

The craftsmanship on this case is outstanding, great care has been taken when building this case. All joints are even and join nicely, there was not a single mark on the case when it was unwrapped and I love the layout of this case. I found that a few things needed to be address for future versions of this case such as:

- Higher intensity LED's
- Larger fan grills in the case
- Replacing gold fan grills with chrome grills

I truly believe that Beantech have hit on a winner with their range of Clear Cases. I look forward to seeing their next range of Clear Cases to see what improvements and new ideas they come up with. I have got a few mod's planned for this case which I will share with you once I get round to doing them.

As you can see the pros far out weight the cons, for this reason I am awarding the case:

modtown rating: 4.5 out of 5

top 

©2005 Modtown. All Rights Reserved | Copyright Information | Contact Us