Closer Look: Exterior

In this section we will have a good look at the exterior styling of the BitFenix Shinobi Window case to get a good idea of what it has to offer.

The Shinobi Window case ships in a rather plain cardboard box, nothing too fancy which helps to keep costs down. The main features of the case are depicted in picture form with very brief explanations of these features.

The looks of the front of the Shinobi will surely leave us divided, I quite like the straightforward no frills approach and I think this will be the new trend. There are too many 'in your face' jagged line/abstract looking cases on the market and not enough profesional looking cases in this price range. My only concern here is air intake and how restricted it might be, the mesh running up either side is where most of the air will be drawn in.

The front mesh design carries on over to the top of the case and there is also some nice mesh venting here for exhaust fans. The front I/O panel looks rather nice too.

Rather than just cutting a square hole in the side panel and slapping in some perspex BitFenix have opted for an abstract window design for the window edition Shinobi case. The window is a very dark smoked color and actually restricts view quite a lot, unless you have interior lighting inside your case you won't really see much through the window.

The rear of the Shinobi looks normal by today's standards of PC cases, with all of the normal features that are popular amongst us enthusiasts. A good indicator of how much room you have to play with inside the case is to look above the rear I/O space and below the bottom PCI expansion slot, in this case it looks rather tight. While this might hinder installation a little, it will be good from a cable management perspective as you will be able to get all of your cables tight and close to the motherboard top and bottom. The rear fan mount allows for a 120mm fan (installed) or a 92mm fan, and there are two grommeted watercooling pass through ports. It is a little shame that the PCI expansion covers are not vented but this is another cost saving method that doesn't affect the overall case too much.

The right side of the case is rather plain and doesn't matter too much as it is normally hidden out of sight anyway. I see this side panel as a blank template should you want to inflict your own design on a side panel, both side panels are generally interchangeable so do with this one as you wish.

Looking at the bottom of the case now we can see extra venting for intake airflow (left side) this alleviates my earlier concerns about restricted air intake a little, but still doesn't quite compare to straight forward intake airflow from a fully vented case front. In the center and towards the rear are two vented cut-outs, the middle one is for air intake and allows for a 120mm fan to mounted inside the case and the rear one is for PSU air intake. Both of the air intakes have a plastic honeycomb mesh dust filter which is better than nothing but will only stop large dust particles.

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