Verdict: Someone should have told Jeantech that fans and sharks have nothing to do with each other.
We're not really sure why sharks should be associated with PC cases but, following Thermaltake's Shark series, Jeantech has released a case named after the generally misunderstood fish. There's little sharkiness about it though - no toothy mouth, no dorsal fin and the closest thing to gills that we could find is the massive 220mm intake fan on the side panel.
The Shark is a fairly cheap yet reasonably solid and attractive midi-tower case with a few tempting extras. The drive bays behind the sturdy aluminium front door are metal mesh, so you'd hope for good airflow. The top drive bay is used for the front panel connections (headset, two USB 2 ports, plus the power and reset buttons), making them readily accessible. There are five external 5.25in bays and three internal 3.5in bays, which should be enough for a well-specified PC. The 220mm fan blows air over hot-running components, and the absence of a PSU means you can choose your own model.
These good first impressions are slightly marred by the looseness of the drive bay fascia, but this can be easily remedied. The first job is to dismantle the case as much as possible, unscrewing the two side panels (only one has thumbscrews), and then finding the screw that holds the drive bay fascia to the right-hand side. You'll see two odd plastic clips that attach to the main chassis and clip into points on the drive bay fascia, holding it firmly in place while enabling you to yank it open. Doing this is generally a bad idea, however, as the fascia bears the front panel attachments, the cables of which are stretched just about as far as possible in order to plug into the motherboard.
Unscrewing one of the metal drive bay plates and installing an optical drive is easy, as is unscrewing the three-bay hard disk caddy and sliding it out the front. It has mounting points for a 120mm fan, but the holes are too small to take conventional fan screws. As access to the rear of the screw holes is restricted, you have to attach the fan from the front. Again, conventional fan screws won't do the job; you need 30mm bolts with a washer and nut, none of which are supplied, to use the hard disk caddy fan mount. As we can only review a case based on supplied components, plus our standard pair of low-noise 120mm fans where necessary, we couldn't install the front intake fan.
Everything else about the case is fairly conventional, even if Jeantech seems to think that motherboards need only eight mounting points rather than nine. The rear 120mm fan mount is conventional, while the PSU can slot in once everything else is in place, as there's no real holding cage. This means that it largely hangs off the four attachment screws, so heavy or overly long PSUs might bend these screws or come crashing down on your motherboard.
The interior of the case is fairly conducive to a neat build, with a shelf above the front panel connections for spare power cables. The hard disk caddy provides a gap below for spare S-ATA power connectors and any other messy bits. Remember to leave one Molex spare for the 220mm fan, which has a daisy-chain Molex attachment - we used this for the front panel connection.
As there's no fan controller, the 220mm fan constantly spins at 500rpm. With such huge blades, the fan is quite noisy; it also blows air straight onto the motherboard's temperature sensors, so our Q-Fan-controlled exhaust fan (set to 30ûC) didn't spin up. As a result, the PSU was lumbered with the task of expelling most of the hot air from the case.
The front fan (if you've made a trip to your local DIY shop to install it) will similarly suffer, so the hard disk(s) will receive little air unless you set the 120mm fans to run at a constant speed.
Conclusion
Big fans seem to be in fashion at the moment, and we're not just talking about David Beckham's new supporters. However, like any other product, they need to be good and not just big. The 220mm fan supplied with the Shark is noisy, and causes more problems than it aims to solve. Airflow through the Shark is chaotic, with little attention given to the hard disks or how air is supposed to exit the case.
Jeantech should have stuck with a plain side panel, or improved the exhaust system. The company should also supply proprietary screws that would allow you to use the front 120mm fan mount without necessitating a trip to B&Q. With these two criticisms addressed, the Shark would be a good case. As it stands, it's below par.
