Torture

That's what this is, "Torture". Knowing when a big review is coming can really wear you down. When you're home you watch for the delivery truck, or when you're at work you're just itching to find out if the package has arrived. I went through this with my first review and ever since then I try to just humbly wait till it gets here, if and when it does. Let me tell you waiting for the new Xpider II was gut wrenching. Just when I was ready to ask if it was still coming, it was here! I walked into the room and there it was... a bright red box with a Xpider II logo on it.

The Company

The Chenbro manufacturing facility is in Dong Guan, China and just celebrated their 20 year anniversary of manufacturing high quality PC components. Chenbro manufactures many cases for several different companies besides themselves. I don't know if they have other plants, but the one in Dong Guan may manufacture all their cases. Chenbro is respected world-wide amongst their peers for the quality and craftsmanship of their products. If the Xpider/Gamer Bomb case took almost 300 steps to manufacture, imagine how many more went into the Xpider II. Chenbro manufactures from ground up; they thoroughly test airflow, sound, and temperatures when designing any case. I'm a plant manager myself so I know and understand the processes they must go through to produce such quality cases. Enough about Chenbro, lets check out the Xpider II.

During this review I will mention from time to time comparisons of the Xpider I/ Gamers Bomb case to the new Xpider II. The Xpider II is built on the same chassis as the Xpider I. The Xpider I/The Bomb name differs from North America to the rest of the world but they are the same case. This time around Chenbro did a face lift on this popular chassis plus added some refinements, and I must say this is one Pimp pre-mod!

Detailed Specs:

• ATX Form Factor
• Dimensions: 18.3"x7.8"x16.7"
• 4 external 5.25" bays
• 2 External 3.5" bays
• 5 Internal 3.5" bays
• Hard Tooled 0.8 mm steel
• Unique Side window
• Front-mounted I/O ports

The Big Red Box

This new shipping package is a big improvement over the black and white box the Bomb case came in. It just has more appeal and shows they are proud of what they are making.

The only protection from the mailman and his spawns from hell is a plastic liner and the box. In the lower left corner there is a tear in the box. Thank the modding gods there was no damage. Formed Styrofoam protected the corners.

The side was marked blue, with power supply, and a cooling fan. Speaking from experience, I know that what is inside might not be what’s marked on the box. Fortunately for this review it was.

I was impressed when I opened the box. Inside they left me a handful of brochures which I will hand out to local stores. The front bezel is very wide with black and metallic blue highlights. The case is shipped with the standard foam inserts.

The case is triple wrapped with a plastic bag, then again with stretch wrap, and finally a protective coating on the back panel. You can never have enough protection from scratches during shipping.