P182 Special Edition - One of the best cases gets better
by Joshua Buss on April 12, 2007 1:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Exterior
There is really no point in skirting around the P182 SE's most fantastic selling point. Both side panels and the front door are coated in an incredibly well polished stainless steel finish.
The finish is so clean in fact, we found it hard to really take a good picture of the case. Faced with this challenge, we figured it might be best to just take a few pictures of exactly what we saw when photographing the unit.
Just as the original P180 and all of its siblings, the P182 SE does not have much at all on the front side when the door is closed. "Antec" is embossed in the top right corner, but other than that only the ports and a lock for the panel are visible.
The case comes with two USB ports, a FireWire port, headphone and microphone jacks, as well as power and reset buttons all accessible on the front of the case. When the door is closed, the power and reset buttons are covered -- a good way to keep prying hands away from your system.
Getting back to the finish and its reflectivity though, the side panel in particular could almost be suitable as a replacement for most bathroom mirrors.
As soon as the door is opened, however, we are greeted with the familiar sight of a matte black plastic finish encompassing the power and reset buttons. The door is magnetically latched and it takes just the right amount of effort to open it up. It also hinges back all the way to the side of the case for users who would prefer to have it always open. Like its predecessors, the P182 SE allows for four 5.25" drives, one 3.5" drive, and gives easy access to both 120mm fan filters for cleaning.
One of the bigger additions to the P182 over the P180 is the inclusion of externally accessible switches for the top two fans on the back at the top of the case. This of course makes its way into the special edition as well, which is quite an improvement over having to take off the side panel and find the switch for each tri-cool fan. The soft rubber water tubing ports make their appearance on the back too, for an easier installation of external water cooling kits.
There is really no point in skirting around the P182 SE's most fantastic selling point. Both side panels and the front door are coated in an incredibly well polished stainless steel finish.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
The finish is so clean in fact, we found it hard to really take a good picture of the case. Faced with this challenge, we figured it might be best to just take a few pictures of exactly what we saw when photographing the unit.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
Just as the original P180 and all of its siblings, the P182 SE does not have much at all on the front side when the door is closed. "Antec" is embossed in the top right corner, but other than that only the ports and a lock for the panel are visible.
The case comes with two USB ports, a FireWire port, headphone and microphone jacks, as well as power and reset buttons all accessible on the front of the case. When the door is closed, the power and reset buttons are covered -- a good way to keep prying hands away from your system.
Getting back to the finish and its reflectivity though, the side panel in particular could almost be suitable as a replacement for most bathroom mirrors.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
As soon as the door is opened, however, we are greeted with the familiar sight of a matte black plastic finish encompassing the power and reset buttons. The door is magnetically latched and it takes just the right amount of effort to open it up. It also hinges back all the way to the side of the case for users who would prefer to have it always open. Like its predecessors, the P182 SE allows for four 5.25" drives, one 3.5" drive, and gives easy access to both 120mm fan filters for cleaning.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
One of the bigger additions to the P182 over the P180 is the inclusion of externally accessible switches for the top two fans on the back at the top of the case. This of course makes its way into the special edition as well, which is quite an improvement over having to take off the side panel and find the switch for each tri-cool fan. The soft rubber water tubing ports make their appearance on the back too, for an easier installation of external water cooling kits.
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Icepick - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
They already did test it back in 2005. http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2670&p...">http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2670&p...Well, they tested the P150 but, it's identical to the Solo (power supply excepted, of course).
BPB - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
Actually, even excluding the power supply, they are not 100% identical. The P150 uses "trap doors" to cover the 5.25" and 3.5" drives. I don't mind it, but many do. It you like to use things like the headphone jack on a DVD drive or see the activity light, then you may not want the P150 anyway. Of course the Solo is cheaper due mainly to its lack of PSU, but in my opinion the Solo is not as good looking. I own both.yacoub - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
Wow, do people actually use that? The last time I did was 1996 when I had my first computer and tried that jack out with a pair of headphones just to see how it worked. :D
yacoub - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
(obviously referring to a CD-ROM drive btw, not a DVD-ROM drive)BPB - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
Not so http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">obvious! Click on the image and you will see, why strong wording and the truth, do not always agree.My experience is that many folks use the jack at work if the PC enclosure doesn't have a front headphone jack. And my experience is many work PC's at large, cheap companies do not.
BPB - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
I agree. I got the Solo for about $40 (shipped) from Outpost recently. That, of course, is after rebate. I wanted something smaller and quiet. I also have the P150, which is almost identical to the Solo. I'm not sure which I prefer. Still, if I decided I wanted to go back to a taller case, this would probably be at the top of my list. I'd have to wait for a special though, the list price is simply too high. By the way, I believe the Solo and P150 support 3 suspension mounts, not 4. The following are from the specs listed at Newegg:Spanki - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
I'm not sure if it happened earlier than the 182 rev or not, but the mb tray has also been inset a bit from early 180s. This gives room 'behind' the mb tray to run some of the power cables (I have my big, primary 24-pin power cable running up the back of the mb, out of the way).Also, I ordered the P180B from Newegg at the beginning of March and what I recieved was basically a P182, but painted black, instead of gun-metal grey. Apparently Antec/Newegg started shiping these hybrid models out in late Feb. - others have reported this as well.
Richey02hg - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
so you are basically getting a black p182 (the color i'd want) for the price of a p180?Spanki - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
Yes. As far as I can tell, the case I got is the one shown in the first few photo's http://www.silentpcreview.com/article717-page1.htm...">on this page.MadAd - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
Yes I bought a 180B a couple of weeks ago, it too has the twin switches externally accessible for the rear fans plus space behind the motherboard for wire routing.
A plus was being able to fit a 120x38mm fan infront of the middle tray (just) because I simply do not like 25mm wide 120s so took them all out, speedfan is great for controlling fan arrays so the tri-switched fans were less than useful compared to my own.
Cons were that I needed to buy a 12v4 extension as my seasonic s12 would not make the stretch to the top 12v on the A8N32-SLI mobo, also I still cannot see the point of the PSU cage when it has the 4x standard bolt holes in the rear, another useless item that is now thrown in a box to gather dust.
The rubber grommets that hold the hard drives in were also a bit flimsy and easily distorted before a good grip was had and also the top toolless optical mounting jams in somewhat.
Otherwise its a great case for cooling, my temps have never been lower and even while gaming speedfan rarely has to bump them up, whereas before in my old case with the same fans, just 10 minutes of BF2 and up went the temps making the fans lift...Ill have to wait for summer to see how good it really is but do far im impressed with the cooling ability.