Gadgetory

today we're gonna be having a look at a product from an tech now the Sonata line has been around since pretty much the dawn of time as far as I can tell but it has received some significant updates since the original antic Sonata this is the sonata for the is it is like its predecessors a quiet mid tower case elegantly silent they've added SSD hard drive compatibility this is a quiet computing product for man text which is in line with the original concept for the Sonata and is in my opinion what makes the Sonata line so successful over the long period of time that it has existed so we're gonna start opening up the box but we're also gonna have a look at what an Tek has to say for themselves in terms of spec so it can it has a quiet 621 continuous power PSU so that is higher than any previous Sonata line although the Sonata other than the sonata elite our Sonata proto rather the Sonata line all comes with a power supply but 620 watts is very generous considering that it is so because this is not sorry about the battery there guess so because the Sonata has always been kind of a value bang for the buck line of products that's very generous it has 80 plus certification now in terms of drive bays we've got seven drive bays three five and a quarter inch and four three and a half inch seven expansion slots which is ATX standard one rear 120 millimeter tri cool 3-speed fan and we have front mounted USB 3.0 which is pretty cool to see on a very mainstream case like the Sonata series so let's we got some foam here so you can see on text using a very robust closed cell phone they don't want your sonata for to be damaged at any point shipping that was very very close because I probably should have dumped it out with the phone rather than without it there's what's left in the Box in case you guys were wondering now let's see what the Sonata 4 looks like in person I did not have a chance to visit an tech at the CES 2011 show so I actually have not seen this case in person yet and it's upside down so that remedy okay so here we are with the traditional ode I catch you there ok here we are with the traditional piano black finish now the last time I use the Sonata was actually a sonata 2 so I'm going to be telling you guys what improvements I see based on that ancient case so we've got thumb screws on both sides which means that unlike the older older Sonata we can actually remove both side panels there we are so that allows for better cable management as well as better accessibility to things like hard drives or whatever basically cable management more than anything else let's see how fingerprint-resistant this finishes so unlike older Sonata style cases you can see the fingerprints do leave a mark but it's not quite as ugly as some of the previous ones this is actually quite fingerprint resistant considering everything and let's see how easily they wipe off once you've got something smeared on there oh that's nice actually that's really nice ok so here we've got some ventilation on the side for your drives and then cameraman wants to see the inside so that's how it's mounted just using little plastic clips ok so side panels off so we're looking at the back side you can see there's not much room for cable management behind the motherboard tray although because there's no window you don't have to worry too too much about the overall appearance of the cables just make sure that you optimizing them for good airflow so let's have a look at the front of the case and here you can see in traditional Sonata style oh ok oh yeah there we go it's not locked but it does lock as has per the old Sonata cases as well you can lock the front here and so that's what gives you access to the power switch as well as the reset switch I remember the old sonatas the door only used to open up this much and people would frequently break them off by accident in fact I broke one off myself at one point so now an tech has implemented this 270 degree door-opening hinge so that you're a lot less likely to accidentally push it too far and break it off so there you go here's our three five and a quarter inch base and here is all of our front port access so we've got two USB 2.0 USB 3.0 power hard drive led microphone as well as headphones all right anything around to the other side and there is the inside of the Sonata four so it has a fairly standard layout although there are gonna be some tweaks well this is interesting so the box oh okay the box actually has to be removed via a screw so I don't have a screw driver on yet just this moment so we're gonna have to make do here but the first thing I see when I get inside the case is the front USB 3.0 so the front USB 3.0 actually runs via wire comes out the back of the case and uses a USB port to plug into the back of the i/o shield now I suspect at some point an tech will update this product to use an internal header now that that spec has finally been finalized but right now this is unfortunately the most elegant way to do front USB 3.0 now here's all of our front panel ports including our front USB 2.0 our power switch reset switch power LED hard drive LED as well as high-definition audio and AC 97 audio the included power supply has a wide variety of connectors this is a neo eco 621 so it's 80 plus you can actually see the full specs there but it is a single 12 volt rail power supply which means that no matter what kind of components you're using as long as it has enough power to supply to those components you will not accidentally you know trip any overcurrent protection or anything like that so we've got one 24 pin power connector we've got 1 4+4 pin power connector as well as no yeah that's four plus four pin power connector we've got dual PCI Express connectors and you can see these cables are fairly short but since they are designed to work inside the Sonata four which isn't fairly small chassis that's not a problem at all so we have two PCIe one is a six plus two and one is a six pin so you can support any of the highest end graphics cards with in this case although be careful with ventilation you're probably going to want to add another fan say for example on the hard drive cage or position something on let me see if I can see if they actually have any additional fan mounts it looks like this fan can be mounted on here but I don't see where any extra ventilation is gonna oh that's right the extra ventilation is gonna come from the back in the hard drive cages on the on the back side panel okay so we've got six SATA connectors and then we also have one two three molex six molex connectors so that's our power supply connectors here is our Tri cool fan so we've got our switch is actually integrated into the back of the case and it's powered by molex connector so I'll go ahead and show you guys that switch and while we're back here I'll show you the entire back panel so it comes with a dummy i/o shield there's your seven expansion slots here's a little bit of extra ventilation room and other than that there's not really much of note on the back of the case now harddrive mounting has been altered a fair bit on the Sonata four so you can see these hard drive cages can actually fit drives on silicone grommets here we're gonna remove the whole assembly here I'll show you guys how this works so you can actually mount the drives on silicone grommets and you can do up to four drives sideways so that that is a fairly unique way of mounting the drives this is all with bum screws so you don't actually have to use a screw driver to mount your hard drive which is kind of neat as well and now let me see what we've got in terms of accessories in our accessory box here okay so beyond the power cord which stands to reason as this case does have an included power supply we have some zip ties as well as all of the necessary screws we're going to need we have a key for the front case and an antec case badge and last but not least oh we've actually got a drive bay adapter so this is a five and a quarter inch to three and a half inch external drive bay adapter just in case you have a media card reader or you know heaven forbid I suppose a floppy drive or anything else that you might need to plug into a three and a half inch external drive so that's pretty much all I have to say at this time about the Sonata four thank you for checking out my unboxing and don't forget to subscribe to - tech tips for more reviews on boxing's and other computer videos aha I found the SSD mount or rather cameraman found it it's right here so this is not for a fan this is for mounting a two and a half inch SSD drive so you would put it right on there so there actually isn't any additional forced air intake so you're going to be relying on your 120 millimeter exhaust for all of your well exhaust so I wouldn't really recommend a super high powered GPU like a GTX 580 but anything like a gtx 560 or below should be just fine in a case like this which is designed more for a mainstream gamer or a mainstream consumer