Pininfarina Case & Design (Cont.)

First impressions of this case are absolutely stunning. Like anything Pininfarina designed, pictures taken do very little justice. Clean and simple curves can be appreciated for hours, as the aluminum pieces surround the case from front to back. So what actually drew our attention is the streamlined design. It almost seems that it's also optimized for perfect airflow on the outside. So, on the outside we are already sold for the Pininfarina touch of this well designed Spire case, but what else will make the difference? Time to dig a bit deeper...

Moving towards the front of the Pininfarina case we are presented with the hinged door that covers our external expansion bays. The door and hinge are plastic with an aluminum cover. The door is held in place with metal pins and is a very nice fit. Because of the outer aluminum shell, the door is very solid and well weighted despite being plastic. The door hides three external 5.25" drive bays and a pair of 3.5" floppy bays. The door uses simple magnets to keep it closed, which are adequate to keep the door closed during normal operation and moving around.

On the top of the case, a lift-up lid conceals the USB, FireWire, and audio ports. The lid also holds the power and reset buttons, and the LED's for power and HDD activity. More cases are following this top mounted format, and Spire's is one of the more elegant. Unless you know the lid is there, you'd overlook it. The way the cover works is clever as well with nothing more than slight pressure required to bring the lid back down after opening the lid and it propping in place.

Something new to the world of PC cases is the removable mainboard tray and/or side panel combination. We actually get to one of the more interesting features of the Pininfarina case. Sharp-eyed readers would have noticed the decidedly car like latches on the sides. To open the sides of the case, simply lift up the handle and the side flips downwards. The catch is easy and smooth to use and both case side panels rest on three hinges which means the whole panel swings down very easily and can then be very easily removed. Just lift up while the panel is at an angle and it pops out of place.

This feature puts the Spire Pininfarina right over the top in our humble opinion. The case has what is called a butterfly opening, one of the benefits of this type of opening is the fact that it allows you absolute perfect room to work and install your motherboard, video card and power supply. What more could you ask for than to be able to pull a single handle and fold your motherboard over on the table and be able to work on it? At least for us it was a quite fun experience and allowed a very easy installation of our system components.