Sonata Plus 550 is a mainstream high-quality mid-tower case from Antec, coming with a very well-known 550 W power supply (Antec Neo HE 550), a three-speed 120-mm fan on the rear and a very beautiful black finishing. Let’s take a full look on this case from Antec.
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Figure 1: Antec Sonata Plus 550 case.
As you can see on Figure 1, Sonata Plus 550 is made of zinc-coated steel (a.k.a. SECC) with automotive black paint applied and a plastic front panel without a door protecting its bays.
Sonata Plus 550 has four external 5 ¼” bays and one of them (the bottom one) can be used to hold a 3 ½” floppy disk drive, as it provides a frame to make this possible. This case features two USB ports, one Firewire (IEEE1394) port, mic in jack and headphone out jack. We think a case with this construction level (and price range) should have at least one eSATA port on its front panel, a feature that is becoming more and more common and important, as users are using eSATA-based external hard disk drives to backup their data and/or carry data around.
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Figure 2: Front panel.
Between the front panel and the main case body there is a vertical mesh that is used for air intake. Usually air enters the case from a mesh located on the front panel or from below the case, on a small opening available between the front panel and the body of the case. We think that creating this mesh the way Antec did on this case was a very clever move, as in our opinion this solution provides a better airflow to the case, as this case has a bigger intake area.
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Figure 3: Air intake.
On Figure 4 you can see the rear of this case. There you can see the rear 120-mm fan and the power supply that come with the product. This case has seven expansion slots, just like 99% of the cases on the market today.
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Figure 4: Rear panel.
You can easily add a real lock to this case making it difficult to unauthorized people to open it and steal parts, what can easily happen on a LAN party, LAN café or exposition, for example. Another use that can be given to this hole is to add a warranty seal, making the warranty voided if the user breaks it.
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Figure 5: Place for installing a lock on the rear side of the case.
