Gadgetory

so this has been somewhat of a disappointing year for cases and I'm looking forward to 2018 because it's supposed to get better right so welcome to our worst case trends of 2017 there's been plenty let's discuss right after this the new master liquid all-in-one coolers are available in 120 and 240 millimeter stylish radiator sizes with air balanced fans included for best air flow and RGB sync on the pump and the fans that are controlled via this hub or through your motherboard check out the ML 120 ln 240 l down below so i'm making this video to be like a reference point to which we can look back and see if anything that we discuss here today with you and also in the comments gets addressed within the case industry so let's go now these are not in particular order so the first case then would be the lack of type-c integration on the front io of cases type C on motherboards has been sort of the mainstream for like a whole year so not only is it much easier to route because the cable is smaller but of course USB 3.1 gen2 speeds are awesome and the case a you should accommodate for it next I really dislike included fans unlike 90% of the cases because there's this cheap generic black fans coolermaster for example on their most premium closure has the same fans as on their budget stuff we see fans with molex connections or single color LED fans that to ruin the whole color coordination and also where's my no offend option upon check out I really would love to see that become the standard across all price points in 2018 and speaking of price why does it feel like cases are getting more and more expensive without the budget introductions to compensate for the Rises and prices for the premium stuff and the only exception I can think of this entire year is the faint expiry hundred which is a fantastic $59 enclosure that has pretty much all the same features that you'd normally find on cases twice the price the next big trend is lack of interior variety it seems like there's this one formula for a case interior and everyone is following it without risking to deviate from the pack to create something actually unique for example vertical PCI brackets for GPU installation it's on majority of cases now but aside from coolermaster and now EVGA no one is offering the mounting accessories to be included with the case to actually utilize that slot for your graphics card it's a slow catching trend that is not evolving with the frame so the GPU is way too close to the side panel so temperatures are actually worse and you can check out our investigation with that right over here every case now has a power supply shroud which is awesome I love them but everyone is doing the same thing so the 30% of your enclosure is basically identical on majority of cases so we have cutouts on the shroud for the front radiator cutouts for the PCI cables start for SSDs and some design graphic near the power supply area to indicate the brand it's fine I'm not complaining about the features but nobody is doing anything different aside from a few brands like be quiet with the dark base 700 with the modular plates on the power supply shroud or the flexible mounting points for the SSD caddies on the h7 100 I because of that perforation but aside from that and like a few maybe other examples everything is basically just copy and paste and we're also seeing so many identical interior frames across brands because they're multiple case suppliers but not many cakes manufacturers so it's very easy for a company to redesign the exterior a little bit but keep the inside and we're seeing that happen so often so the latest antic piayed case has the same frame as the one year old silverstone red line of five that has the same frame as the raid max delta the latest BitFenix enzo case has the same frame as this DIY PC brand that I've never heard of that resembles this z9 neo by Zelman that looks similar to the Cougar MX 330 that is the same frame as the NR max grace mesh and it looks like only a handful of companies are trying to do something unique and different for the interior to keep the excitement going but it seems like the interiors are getting bigger for the mainstream which is wrong now I understand the logic behind wanting to check off as many of the boxes and compatibility things as you want for the consumer but cases today are just way too big for the average build of maybe 240 millimeter all-in-one cooler one single graphics card or is beefy CPU tower and so what happens most of the time is all this wasted space around the hardware and not everyone's doing a custom water loop with dual GPU graphics cards so why our case is getting bigger I think we need to remove the perception that bigger cases have better air flow or that they're somehow more premium because that's just not true everything in 2017 in terms of color coordination has been a black frame potentially with certain color coordinated accented pieces but only for a few brands but everything else is color customizable through RGB illumination which has taken a life of its own but why don't we see different materials aside from you know steel aluminum plastic and tempered glass why don't we see any wood on cases to just add a little bit of really cool aesthetic pieces on the exterior of the frame why don't we see any fabric covered front panels to just potentially tie it in to your living room for HT pcs and stuff like that and why don't we see any recycled materials coming back into the case industry so that you can feel a little bit better I don't know about actually recycled materials integration inside the frame itself but perhaps for packaging and that would be nice now the biggest visual trend for 2017 in my eyes has been tempered glass and what started is this fantastic way to eliminate that crappy scratch brown acrylic side panel with glass has turned it into a little bit of a disaster so the initial price gems for the T G model was a little bit too high and then charging $50 40 G panel upgrade is just ridiculous I also think it was artificially inflating the quality of the case just because it's shiny it doesn't mean that the frame itself is good we saw this with I need these who were one of the first to actually release a case with three tempered glass side panels but with a terrible metal frame and really poor quality it was actually one of the reasons why we didn't accept the review sample because the frame itself I could see was poor and charging like a hundred 60 bucks for three side panels it was obviously they were trying to take advantage of the market and the rising popularity in T G so yeah and now tempered glass has spread all over the case and because you're limited on glass shape and everyone ends up basically with the same design although I have to give EVGA some credit for trying something new but having a solid white glass panel kind of defeats the whole purpose of the see-through and the reflective properties of glass you know what I haven't seen you at all is tempered glass on the power supply shroud that would be cool in certain segments to potentially reveal what's inside but mirrors mirrors on the interior to potentially highlight certain things with lighting that would be cool however the biggest fail of this year has to be the huge oversight and front air flow and how choking the fans has become this running phrase among case reviews that's just sad so this actually comes back to tempered glass because either due to design decisions so users can see there are GB fans or you know whatever interior is or due to silent properties where the fans have just no air to breathe because the paneling it just completely closed off and we saw this with the H 500 P a particular airflow focused case turned out to be not what anyone was expecting especially because of those giant 200 millimeter fans the latest Leonie case suffers from the same showcased priorities with tiny ventilation area on the front panel the latest EVGA case actually totally blocks the front fans with only small gaps on one side and when I did my tests we got 10 degrees cooler temperatures when the panel was removed the latest be quiet dark bass 700 has incredibly restrictive airflow entrance as well because you know for silence I guess and companies should not be afraid to open up that front panel and you know with the nice balance of a fan rpm and unrestricted airflow you can still have nice silent and quiet system with good cooling temperatures and nice front airflow also can we please have a standard configuration for the top radiator mount something with guidelines so the case manufacturers know what to do because majority of them are still centered which kind of sucks if you don't have enough height for the motherboard the radiators simply will not fit or interfere with your motherboard so anything that will be offset closer to the side panel would be appreciated and many cases don't have sufficient room above the motherboard tray to accommodate a standard set of fans and radiator and you don't need a super tall case for that potentially reduce the height of the power supply shroud and move the motherboard tray down a little bit to have appropriate room at the top for the most common cooling situation in 2017 the new tesora gram SD spectrum is one seriously beautiful keyboard with perky RGB illumination macro customization built-in and comes with to source new removable optical switches that are dust and water resistant with linear reds or clicky blues full details on the SE spectrum down below and so I am eager to see what 2018 has in stock for case reconfiguration and reinvention because I am yeah 2017 was a little bit of a disappointment and so that is all my thoughts about the worst case trends of 2017 let me know if you agree and share your discontent about the case industry in the comments below let's have that chat I'm looking forward to reading everything you say thanks much for watching make sure to check out this other relevant content and subscribe and we'll see you in the next case video