A-Top Technology
has, at least to me, been known for their translucent line of cases.
Not too long ago, though, they offered to let me review their AT900.
This case is not translucent and has actually taken care of some of
the pitfalls that their translucent line had.

To start, this
case is almost completely toolless. To remove the side panel, you
loosen a thumb screw and it’ll slide right out. Installation of your
drives can be done without any tools, although for added stability
you may want to use the regular screw too. And, obviously, for the
motherboard, you need screws.

But, other than
that, the case is quite easy to use. The motherboard tray slides
right out, allowing you to put the guts of the system together
without being in the confines of the case. Drive installation is
screw-less. The idea behind the installation is good, but it needs a
little refinement. The drive rails come with small tabs on them
which are placed inside of the screw holes on the drive. Then, you
slide the whole contraption into the drive rack on the case and in
snaps into place. On a demo model at COMDEX, the whole thing was
quite easy since the drive was probably slid in and out all day.
But, on the review model I had, it was a little harder to get in and
out, mainly because there was a lot of friction between the metal
surfaces. But, I can tell that if you use the case enough, it will
wear down and become easier. It also takes a little time to get used
to how this works, but you will get the hand of it as I did.

The case has
pretty decent structure. It is quite solid. The interior is totally
chrome. This is done not only for looks, but it also reduces EMF and
reduces things such as rust. The corner are all rounded, a big plus
since I sliced my finger on a cheaper case just a few weeks ago. The
cooling situation is pretty good in this case. My review case came
with the optional case fan, so it had two. One fan pulled air in
through the front and another, above the power supply, blew air out
the back. Since heat rises, this is a good design, blowing hot air
out the back and sucking cool air in through the front.

On thing I like
about the case is that it seems to address some of the little
annoyances in the more well-known models such as Enlight. For
example, in every Enlight case I have messed with, pulling the front
bezel off is a mission in futility. It takes a He-man to pull that
thing off! But, in this A-Top case, it comes off rather easily, by
using metal tabs to hold it on. Also, while Enlight boasts that
their cases are screwless, this case comes a lot closer to this
claim than Enlight does.

Overall, I
believe A-Top did a great job with this case. While I wasn’t sold on
the last case I reviewed for them, this case has addressed many of
the concerns I had and even took care of little problems their
competition hasn’t yet done. Good job, A-Top. PC Mechanic gives you
4.5 stars out of 5!

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