Lian-Li PC-A12 chassis

[HEXUS]

After nearly 15 years of producing high-quality, beautifully-finished, aluminium system cases, Lian-Li has the sort of fanatical following that money can’t buy. We're checking out the company's latest range, starting with the 'budget' model, the sub-£90 PC-A12, to see if the reputation is still deserved.

Read more.

[pauldarkside]

I'm getting "invalid URL" when trying to read the article

[jimbouk]

What's a man meant to do on a Monday morning at work with nothing to read! Look forward to it

[MD]

It's working for me here...

[PD HEXUS]

well... the article is active and live...

but no... you guys weren't seeing things... there was a little frantic eleventh hour editing going on ...so we did briefly deactivate the article for a coupla minutes

apologies for the inconvenience!

anyways please do let us know your own thoughts on the Lian-Li PC-A12?

[MD]

Originally Posted by PD HEXUS

but no... you guys weren't seeing things... there was a little frantic eleventh hour editing going on ...so we did briefly deactivate the article for a coupla minutes

Whoops.

Ah well what do I know I only wrote the thing

[pauldarkside]

Yeah, I know, "if it ain't broke..." but there's nothing new here; the same high quality materials, construction and finish packaged at a reasonable price (well, a little higher than it should be). This isn't the chassis I'm looking for, move along, move along.

Does anyone actually need front mounted 3.5" drive bay in a new PC these days? Not for RAID drivers in a new OS. Lose that and give me a 6 internal hard drive mount instead of that 3 drive solution. Where's the removeable motherboard tray gone? My first Lian Li case (6 or 7 years ago) had that. <sigh />

PS ... nice review though

[kalniel]

Originally Posted by pauldarkside

Does anyone actually need front mounted 3.5" drive bay in a new PC these days?

They're great for sticking card readers in

[jimbouk]

I always go for the card-reader/floppy combo - takes up no more room and you never know when you might need a floppy...

[pauldarkside]

I've never really had a need for a card reader - I use the device (mobile, camera, etc) via a cable instead. The only time I've used a floppy drive over the past few years is for driver installation during an OS installation; Vista can read from other sources as can most recent systems.

The blanking plates create too much additional depth when used with a hard drive. I'd much rather have those drives stacked on top of the others making cable management easier and giving me more RAID configuration options without losing my 5.25" bays. That's my preference and something I've been wanting from Lian Li, in a midi case, for quite some time.

[this_is_gav]

Originally Posted by pauldarkside

Where's the removeable motherboard tray gone? My first Lian Li case (6 or 7 years ago) had that. <sigh />

It's towards the budget end of their new range - they don't want to fill it with features or no-one would buy their higher-end products. Silverstone are the same. I'm struggling to think of a use for the removable motherboard tray anymore anyway. They were only really useful for installing larger heatsinks, but then the larger heatsinks became too big and the tray wouldn't fit through the back of the chassis anyway.

They have some use in cramped cases, but other than that, they're just another feature to make a metallic rattling noise in my opinion.

Originally Posted by pauldarkside

I've never really had a need for a card reader - I use the device (mobile, camera, etc) via a cable instead. The only time I've used a floppy drive over the past few years is for driver installation during an OS installation; Vista can read from other sources as can most recent systems.

Generally used the cable myself, but I've become paranoid with how fragile the connectors seem to be on some compact cameras, so I use the card reader in my monitor at home now, and have bought a Silverstone reader for my PC at work (bought the Scan one originally, but SD Cards wouldn't even fit into that...!) - useful for wiping SD Cards when handing out PDAs to the kids too.

//edit: nice review, but how about some details on the connecting cables, cable length and such? It always something important to me (having 9 individual pins for USB on my current case), but it's never something reviewing sites mention. All I can make out is an AC'97 audio plug and what looks like part of a USB one. Haven't got a clue what the rest are. I'm not saying I'm interested in this case (I'm not - that 2-tone front doesn't look particularly classy to me), but it's something I'd like to see in future reviews. It's the little details that count.

[MD]

I think they are still around for things like LCD screens etc. although the new standalone one Scan has is really tempting...

Overall its not a bad case for the lower end of Lian-Li's range, although its still that little bit too expensive.

Personally I love motherboard trays (I would the amount of times a week I build a system) - they may have less use since the introduction of bigger coolers, but sometimes, with some of the chassis I deal with I really honestly get annoyed when you are working in really crampt places.

Besides the more you can destruct a chassis the better it is for the modding community.

[pauldarkside]

In addition to the cable connections ... a mention as to whether or not the front audio connector carries the wire for autosensing headphone connection would be useful in future please

[tigermain]

Erm so its just their old PC60 slightly tweaked and with a door LITERALLY screwed on the front (in the least subtle way possible)

Come on, how can it even justify a review?!?! Lets bring out the same product with a door take a feature or 2 away and charge an extra 30 quid for it!?!!?

Don't get me wrong the original was a classic and a great case (my old site reviewed it and staff had them) but they are taking the pee (are they expecting people to have forgotten)

[Lucio]

Well, rebranding and refreshing popular product lines is always a good way to bring in cash from the people who didn't see it the first time around but aren't willing to buy an "outdated" product.

The extra cost is just a bonus for the company and covers any R&D money spent

[moby_matt]

Not sure I like this case. I currently use an Antec 1088AMG and I find it fairly easy to tinker around in. I know it's not that fancy, but I did get it new for about £55 just under a year ago - including the TruePower 480w PSU...