Review
- Introduction
- Packaging and Specification
- External Impressions Part 1
- External Impression Part 2
- Internal Impressions Part 1
- Internal Impressions Part 2
- Test Bench and Installation Experience
- Conclusion
Like P180, a great pc case back in the days, is plain and simple with no flattery designs- usually made for those keeping gamers mind. Unfortunately, most of these really good cases with XL-ATX form factor but pretty much everyone makes plastic moulds on the front and top panel and aim towards gamers. Don’t misunderstand. I am not saying its wrong, there are people who wouldn’t need all that. P280- atleast by the looks of it, takes that sweet spot.
The case comes with the required screws, few extra brass standoffs and a spare silicone grommet for the HDD tray, but the case doesn’t come with a detailed instruction manual so you’ll need to get a copy via online. Little bit of inconvenience, but if you know what you’re doing/ you can figure how to put a system together, no worries here!
Moving on…
The case has a door on the front panel with aluminium finish (note: not brushed aluminium finish), you open it up and you’ll see 3x 5.25" bays with a removable air filter for 2x 120mm fan mounts.
There are no front panel fans mounted on the top, but rather Antec mounted their 2x 120mm fans on the top panel and connected it to their fan controller hub (you’ll get to know about it) where you can access it at he rear I/O. Antec lets you mount 2x 120mmx 25mm fans only. There’s no optional mount for 140mm fans. Also, as can be seen on the top Corsair AF series (with blue ring installed) fans, the case lets you install on 2 opposing corner. Not really a con, but it could use a rubber grommet between on fan mounts (unless the fans you have come with pre-installed fan mounts).
The door has 2 hinges, one is to open the door and second one is to push to the door towards the left side panel, incase you want to keep it open at all times. There’s also a handle on the bottom to support while carrying, however I wouldn’t really recommend using it with all the hardware mounted inside the case.
The quality of the plastic door and the front panel body is of very good quality with sturdy build and matte black finish. Also, there is a large enough routing holes for the fans, big enough even to push through the Molex connectors. The door has a magnet bit to keep it in placed while its closed, but do note that the magnet on the door is stuck with a glue and in in my case the magnet did come out. Antec needs to use a stronger glue but not that strong that would damage the part of plastic that holds the magnet. The inner part of the door has a foam-type material for dampening sound.
From left: LED light, Audio jacks, 2x USB 2.0 and 2x USB 3.0 followed by another pin hole LED light.
As mentioned before, there are 2x 120mm fans mounted towards the top as exhaust followed by a Power and Reset button on the top. Rest of the the top panel is plain. There’s no 140mm mounts on the top panel as well.
The under-belly of the case is as plain as it can get- and there’s no additional 120mm mount on the base. At first I thought the case-feet are hard plastic, but the actual feet is made of silicone.
The feet is very soft gel type surface. Also, Antec has a removable dust filter for the power supply that slides out from the left panel view. This is the first time I realized that since most of the systems will have their Rear I/O section faced against the wall, it makes a lot more sense to have slide in/out from the sides, mostly from the left sidepanel view. This is smart!
