No CES coverage would be complete without a visit with ANTEC. Futurelooks has been covering ANTEC product for years and we always enjoy our chats with Han Liu, the company’s Product Development Manager. This year, it looks like Han has outdone himself with the introduction of the highly anticipated LanBoy Air, updates and additions to the product line, and the most important product of CES 2010.
The ANTEC LanBoy Air
The LanBoy has always been a signature ANTEC product. Built for LAN Gamers, the case offered flash and dash, but really didn’t find a place back into the company’s line up after the introduction of such legendary cases as the P180. The LanBoy was shelved but cases like the 900 and 1200 took its place later on as gaming cases of choice. This year, the LanBoy name is back and they call this latest case the LanBoy AIR!
Product Development Guru, Mr. Han Liu takes us through the ins and outs of this new and innovative chassis design:
The case definitely breaks new ground incorporating all of ANTEC’s latest innovations including things learned from its experience with the Skeleton Case. Like Han said, this case will add a new dimension of flexibility as well as customization capabilities. The only thing that I noticed missing was that as a LAN Party case, and with the ease of which one could disassemble this case, a robust security system was missing.
Since the case has already been shipped off for final tooling, expect to see it on store shelves sometime in late Q1 (March) or early Q2 for around the $199 US price point.
The Dark Fleet Arrives at ANTEC
Following in the design foot steps of the LanBoy Air, the new Dark Fleet series arrives at ANTEC featuring more rugged gaming goodness that seems to be a hallmark of gaming cases these days.
The DF-85 is ANTEC’s top end flagship of the fleet featuring “Fleet Release” access doors that give you easy access to up to 14 drive bays of various sizes, including one at the bottom of the case that works with a single SSD SATA Drive.
Cooling features include two top 140mm fans and two rear 120mm fans while the front of the case rocks out with another three. One more can be put in the plexi side window if you wish.
One of the most unique features of this case is the “fleet swap” 2.5 inch bay at the top of the case and the “fleet swap” SATA hot swap system available for the front four 3.5 inch bays. The case comes with one of these “fleet swap” devices for the 3.5 inch drive, but additional ones can be purchased and installed for all bays. The case is rounded off with all of ANTEC’s newest cable management features and supports watercooling.
The DF-85’s little brother, the DF-30 will also be made available for people that want something smaller in a mid sized ATX case. It’s basically the same except you get fewer bays due to space limitations. Both of the cases have the capability to use ANTEC’s CP series of power supplies in addition to regular ATX power supplies thanks to a removable plate.
ANTEC Adds More Notebook Coolers
With the popularity of netbooks and notebooks, ANTEC has added a couple of new coolers to the line up. The “Cooler Stand” above is geared towards the MacBook crowd with its aluminum construction and “MacBook-Like” style. It uses a single 80mm fan that is powered by your system’s USB port.
Antec’s “Cooler Basic” has no fan, but offers angle adjustment to minimize wrist and eye strain when using it with the growing number of netbooks on the market.
The “Cooler Designer” is an elegant design that uses a single 110mm blower that allows you to place the unit on your lap without grabbing your pants. It’s powered by USB and the fan spins at a quiet 800 RPM.
Finally, the new lineup is topped off with the “Cooler Mini” which is a wedge shaped cooler that slips under the back of your notebook and draws power from a single USB port. It also raises the back, giving you a much more comfortable position for your wrists.
Mini-ITX Anyone?
ANTEC was also showing off this HTPC concept case. With mini-ITX platforms becoming powerful enough to properly run an HTPC setup, ANTEC decided to throw something together that might pique some interest from passing journalists.
While on the topic of mini-ITX, ANTEC was also showing off this more conventional looking HTPC chassis. Unlike the smaller HTPC case above, this one will allow you to hook up a full complement of drives and allow you to record and archive your favourite TV shows till you run out of space. It was kind of boring though and I hope they spruce it up before they launch it. No ETA or pricing on either unfortunately.
ANTEC Re-Enters the CPU Cooler (err… Kuhler) Market
Along with resurrecting its LanBoy monicker, ANTEC has brought itself back into the CPU cooling market with a trio of coolers. Or rather, as they call them at ANTEC, “Kuhlers”. ANTEC did make some coolers briefly a few years back, but quality control sunk that product line. However, the new designs definitely looked decent and were based on some very solid technologies that are doing well in today’s high performance CPU coolers.
The coolers are built with ANTEC chassis designs in mind and are offered in three orientations that best serve a particular style of chassis, from vertical, to horizontal. The Kuhler Flow, Shelf and Box (left to right) should be hitting store shelves by the end of Q1 and should be priced competitively with other solutions on the market.
The ANTEC TPQ-1200 OC is For Overclocking
For overclocking, having stable power is key to success. The TPQ-1200 OC is a bit of an upgrade to the standard TPQ-1200 in two ways. For starters, the knobs on the back allow you to crank up the juice to stabilize any droop in the rails during hardcore overclocks while capacitors in the leads give you stored up juice for those sudden jolts in demand.
Although I can believe that the adjustment knobs might influence fluctuations in voltage, I’m not such a keen believer in the caps that are wired inline with the power leads. It’s like putting one of those in your car audio systems: it doesn’t really do much.
The Signature Series Gets a 1200W Upgrade
Antec’s signature series power supply gets boosted up to 1200W from its rather pedestrian 650W and 850W versions. This should allow this great power supply to meet the demands of more than just single GPU power users.
In less interesting news, the CP series gets a bump up to 1000 watts from the regular 850watts. That of course won’t be very exciting to you unless you own an ANTEC case with the removable PSU plate.
The Most Important Product of CES 2010 (According to ANTEC)
According to ANTEC, THIS is the most important product of CES 2010…
And if you need to haul around the really heavy LANBoy Air case or any fully loaded up high end gaming rig, you would be right. It’s nice to see companies and especially product development guys have a sense of humor about their products.
For more CES 2010 Coverage check out our CES Category or snoop around the YouTube Channel. More pictures after the jump.
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CES 2010 – ANTEC – Photo Gallery
