Cubitek Tattoo – Externals

No box work here as it’s a pretty OEM, brown cardboard affair. However you do get a small goody bag with it including:

• Manual
• HDD runners
• Assorted bags of screws
• Motherboard speaker
• Mini USB N plug to Micro B converter
• A 5 1/4″ to 3.5″ drive plate

You also get two plastic plates which I was stumped at what they were for. They have screw holes in each corner so I tried to match this to holes in the case, and the only place I found that they lined up was at the base near the PSU and HDD cage. I can only assume it’s some sort static grounding plate. If anyone has a better idea, let me know.

NB. Having spoken with Cubitek, these are to allow SSDs to be attached to the floor of the case, the plastic plates meaning that there isn’t a metal to metal connection.

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The case comes in three different versions: Beta, Pro and Fire. They each have various internal colour and side window configurations, with the one we’re taking a look at being the Fire variant. It features a large side window along with a reduced side “tattoo” design and a red interior.

The exterior is mostly black, with a small light-grey tribal tattoo design in the bottom corner of the main side panel.

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Running through the external features, we have The I/O front panel which includes: Power on/Off and lighting on/off switches, a reset button, twin USB connectors, a single eSata and twin 3.5mm headphone/mic ports.

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There are two glossy black, reflective surfaces down the left and right of the front panel.

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Each 5 1/4″ drive bay is covered with a grill, backed by a dust filter. This helps keep dust out of the case, which is always a plus.

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At the base is a small Cubitek logo badge, above the power light.

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Each drive bay cover comes away very easily by putting a small ammount of pressure on the edge. It might be a little too easy to remove them, and I would worry that they’d come away at incidental contact, but this was specific to certain covers so it might just be a case of wedging them in a bit better.

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Beneath the plates is a quick hint of the very red interior, with other plates that need to be punched out if you want to install an optical drive.

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The black grill cover of the fan at the base of the case can also be easily removed. This makes it much easier to clean the dust filter to stop airflow from becoming impeded.

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However perhaps from the interest of safety, there’s cage like bars in-front of the fan. This obviously make it a bit harder to clean so you’d have to unscrew all four of the corners before you could get at it.

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