Antec Solo review

The Solo is one of the best-designed and sturdiest cases here.

It’s heavier than most, but the tough build and thick sides do an excellent job of insulating noise. You can mount your hard disks using either rubber grommets and long screws or cleverly designed elastic straps that keep the disks out of contact with the metal case to eliminate noise from vibration. It’s not recommended that you move the case with the drives in place if you’re using this mounting method, though.

The front panel is easy to remove. Behind it, you can access the four 3?in internal bays via a hinged grille, which has a removable dust filter and can also be used as a mounting point for additional case fans. There are no external 3?in drive bays, but one of the four 5?in bays comes with a 3?in adaptor fitted, so you can install a memory card reader or floppy drive easily. There are two USB ports, microphone and headphone connections and a Firewire port, but no eSATA.

A 120mm fan is mounted at the rear of the case. This has three speed settings, the slowest of which is inaudible but still shifts a decent amount of air. It’s worth fitting additional fans if you plan to use hot components, such as powerful processors and graphics cards.

The Solo is a quiet and beautifully constructed case that’s easy to build. It wins our Best Buy award.