LanCool Metal-Boned K10

Verdict:

You may not have heard of LanCool before, as it's a sub-brand of plush PC case manufacturer Lian Li. It's also a sub-prime brand, using - sharp intake of breath - steel for the case innards instead of the pricy aluminium Lian Li favours. Aluminium is used for the exterior, however, and hopefully the build quality and extra features haven't been compromised. Could the K10 be a Lian Li case on the cheap?

Costing around £80 the K10 is almost half the price of the two Lian Li cases we've recently reviewed (the PC-B52 and the PC-P60 Armorsuit). That said, there's no escaping the fact that £80 is still quite a bit of cash for a case.

FIRST LOOKS

Steel innards give the K10 strength, while the brushed aluminium side panels reduce its overall weight and lend it the appearance of a more expensive case. However, the K10 still weighs in at 9.2kg, despite its lightweight aluminium skin. The case is aggressively styled, with a heavy, lockable front door.

While the lock might deter casual disk thieves at a LAN event, it's ineffective against more determined hacking. There's a gap between door and the main body of the case, and it took us mere seconds to jimmy the latch open with a small screwdriver.

EXPANSION

The K10 has three 5.25in external bays and a single 3.5in external bay behind the front door. Below these and inside the case, is the hard disk bay, which is mounted sideways. While this placement is usually bad for airflow, this particular enclosure is made with as little metal as possible.

There's enough material for the frame to accommodate the screws for the disks, but not enough to cause much obstruction to the air the front fan is bringing in. The caddy has room for five hard disks, although we'd suggest using only three of these bays and leaving a spare bay between each.

A flap on the top of the case hides the front panel ports. There are plenty: eSATA, FireWire, stereo and microphone, plus four USB 2 ports. They're also ideally located for placing the case beside a desk.

INTERNALS

Inside the K10, there's plenty of room to swing a cat or, if you insist on being conventional, build a PC. The main body of the case provides more than enough room to accommodate even giant 10in-long GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics cards, and there are cable-tidying options conveniently located wherever concentrations of cables are likely to be found, such as near the PSU and hard disks. This helps to keep the wiring under control, which is a big plus.

The motherboard tray is removable, again helping to make installation of your PC fairly easy. There's also no restriction on the size of PSU you can use. However, the side panels don't slide on smoothly - you need to rattle them slightly when you're replacing them.

COOLING

The K10 is cooled by a pair of 120mm fans at the front of the case and a rear 120mm exhaust. The fans are very quiet, as you'd expect from a case in this price range. Unlike the Antec Three Hundred, there are no further fan mounts. The PCI backplates are vented to augment airflow, however.

The low volume of the supplied fans is supposedly helped by the foam padding on the side panels. While this is fairly solid, it isn't particularly thick, so we're sceptical that it does much to block sound waves.

CONCLUSION

The LanCool K10 is a good midi-tower case, with many handy additions to make building your PC an easy task. The cable tidies, the removable motherboard tray, and the quiet pre-installed fans are all welcome.

The problem is that you pay a lot for these features, and for £80, the K10 needs to be a brilliant case rather than just a good one. If the LanCool K10 were priced at £50, it would be easy to recommend. At £80, it's harder to endorse, especially given how it compares with the Antec Three Hundred, which is half the price and far better than half as good.

You buy the LanCool Metal-Boned K10 from XCase for ££81.01 inc VAT (prices on X-Case are shown ex VAT, prioce correct at time of review)

For more information on the Metal-Boned K10, visit LanCool's website

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