Outside

Now to highlight the S21’s “simple, yet elegant” case design, I’ll be starting at the front panel. Smudge protecting plastic aside, the Urban’s front panel is a nice presentation with very little extra frills. The HD audio ports and the dual USB 3.0 ports are right out front for easy access and the power button is a sleek looking square right in the middle of the case flanked by the power LED and Reset buttons.

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Moving down slightly we see the front panel door is held shut by a pair of two small magnets. The door itself feels a bit flimsy and like nothing more than a few sheets of thin plastic screwed together. It holds the case well because it is so light but I have to wonder about its durability.

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Opening the door, you can see a removable fan filter just below the external 3.5” bay and removing this reveals the included 120mm front fan with easy access to mounting screws and the ability to clean the fan filter when needed.

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Now we change directions and look at the top and side of the case. You notice a few things immediately on the side panel with the small window meant to frame your CPU perfectly and well as a mount for a 120mm fan just below it at perfect video card height. There is enough room to mount this fan with a video card installed but with some of the larger solution I would take measurements just to be sure.

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You would think the grate on the top of the case would be another possible fan mount but in this case you would be mistaken. Upon closer inspection, there are no mounting brackets to be found and with the motherboard sitting so high inside the case there is little room to mod this opening even if you wanted to. I have to question the inclusion of this case opening.

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Moving to the rear of the S21, you can easily see the mounting bracket for the power supply at the bottom, the rear case fan and rubber grommets for water-cooling. The expansion slots secure themselves into place quite well on both sides but doing a quick count there seems to be only seven slots on the case leaving me to question where the advertised eighth expansion slot is.

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I’ll finish up the overview on the outside of the case with a quick look at the bottom. The Urban sits on four sturdy padded, rectangle feet. These feet create a kind of chasm on the underside of the whole case when there is a permanently fixed mesh filter for bot h the power supply fan as well as the optional bottom case fan. As always, you would like to see removable filters for easy cleaning.

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Deb0's Avatar
Deb0 replied the topic: #31868 26 Jul 2013 22:15
Some good, some bad. The S21 is a decent case amid superb competition.

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