Verdict: Not quite a bomber, not quite the bomb.
The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, otherwise known as the stealth bomber, was an icon from the moment that it first appeared in the late 1980s. In-Win has sought to capitalise upon its cult status with its new B2 case, inspired by the trianglular stealth plane. Thankfully, the In-Win B2 costs much less than the $2.1 billion that each stealth bomber cost the US taxpayer, although at £70, it will need to have a few tricks for it to be worth buying.
The B2's unusual appearance could go some way to justifying the price of this fairly small midi-tower case. There's an air scoop in the left-hand panel that apes the triangular shape of the B-2 Spirit, and like the stealth plane, the case is dark grey.
The front door of the B2 is motorised, lifting onto the top of the case when you tap the touch-sensitive button next to the central power button. However, while this might sound cool, the door is slow and judders as it opens; it looks more cheap than sleek. To open the door manually, you need to press the rocker switch on the side of the case to disengage (and therefore avoid damaging) the motor.
Underneath the motor switch is a small door concealing the front I/O panel. There are two eSATA and two USB ports, plus FireWire, and stereo and microphone sockets. They're cramped, though, so attaching new devices when you've already filled a few of these ports could be tricky.
Behind the B2 's front door are four 5.25in drive bays located above two external 3.5in bays. Below these and inside the case is the hard disk cage, which is mounted sideways and can hold four disks. Pulling the plastic clip situated above the hard disk caddy lets you rotate it outwards a little to help when installing hard disks. There's space below the hard disk cage for a fifth drive but, with no cooling or airflow in this area, we dubbed this the suicide bay and avoided using it.
Almost all of the B2's internal fittings are screwless, from the drive mountings to the fans and side panels, and the prevalent use of clips makes fitting expansion cards slightly easier than messing around with screws. However, if you're constantly swapping hardware in and out, you might want to remove the clips and use the screw holes instead.
While the plastic clips might make building a PC easier, the cramped main chamber of the B2 certainly doesn't. There's only 280mm of space between the rear of the hard disk cage and the rear of the case; as a standard ATX motherboard is 245mm deep, you're left with just 35mm between the motherboard and drive caddies. Annoyingly, the B2 doesn't offer much in the way of cable management either. There are two small holes towards the front of the motherboard tray through which to route wires, while everything else has to be bundled up in a more ad hoc fashion - we found ourselves pushing cables into the suicide drive bay, but still ended up with a messy system.
While small dimensions can be advantageous, especially for a LAN party case, the weight of the B2 (10.1kg) considerably detracts from this use. In-Win clearly doesn't see you moving a system built in this case very frequently, if at all.
The redeeming feature of the B2 is its cooling system. The basis of this is an orthodox front intake and rear exhaust 120mm fan configuration, which is augmented by a couple of neat touches. A ventilation duct extends from the side panel directly to the CPU area, which can be horizontally adjusted and has an extension tube to ensure that a downwards-blowing CPU cooler receives cool air. Sideways-blowing coolers, such as the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, will see little benefit, however.
Running along the side of the case is a bar for mounting two 80mm exhaust fans to draw air from the graphics card area of the PC. The bar unclips to fold out when building the system. One of the fans is mounted on a hinge and can be clipped into a secondary mounting position so that it blows air from the hard disk caddy towards the expansion cards. However, this will reduce the available space for long graphics cards; only a PCB less than 240mm will fit, so only mid-range cards can benefit from this fan arrangement.
Conclusion
There's certainly appeal in the way that In-Win has designed the B2, and the homage to the iconic B-2 Spirit stealth plane has given the case a unique and interesting appearance. However, the motorised door is slow and juddery, and feels fragile when opened manually. The small size of the case also makes it tricky to build a powerful or neat PC, which is a shame given the innovative cooling. As such, most people would be better off opting for a bigger case, or a cheaper and simpler one.
