P182 Special Edition - One of the best cases gets better
by Joshua Buss on April 12, 2007 1:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Exterior
There is really no point in skirting around the P182 SE's most fantastic selling point. Both side panels and the front door are coated in an incredibly well polished stainless steel finish.
The finish is so clean in fact, we found it hard to really take a good picture of the case. Faced with this challenge, we figured it might be best to just take a few pictures of exactly what we saw when photographing the unit.
Just as the original P180 and all of its siblings, the P182 SE does not have much at all on the front side when the door is closed. "Antec" is embossed in the top right corner, but other than that only the ports and a lock for the panel are visible.
The case comes with two USB ports, a FireWire port, headphone and microphone jacks, as well as power and reset buttons all accessible on the front of the case. When the door is closed, the power and reset buttons are covered -- a good way to keep prying hands away from your system.
Getting back to the finish and its reflectivity though, the side panel in particular could almost be suitable as a replacement for most bathroom mirrors.
As soon as the door is opened, however, we are greeted with the familiar sight of a matte black plastic finish encompassing the power and reset buttons. The door is magnetically latched and it takes just the right amount of effort to open it up. It also hinges back all the way to the side of the case for users who would prefer to have it always open. Like its predecessors, the P182 SE allows for four 5.25" drives, one 3.5" drive, and gives easy access to both 120mm fan filters for cleaning.
One of the bigger additions to the P182 over the P180 is the inclusion of externally accessible switches for the top two fans on the back at the top of the case. This of course makes its way into the special edition as well, which is quite an improvement over having to take off the side panel and find the switch for each tri-cool fan. The soft rubber water tubing ports make their appearance on the back too, for an easier installation of external water cooling kits.
There is really no point in skirting around the P182 SE's most fantastic selling point. Both side panels and the front door are coated in an incredibly well polished stainless steel finish.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
The finish is so clean in fact, we found it hard to really take a good picture of the case. Faced with this challenge, we figured it might be best to just take a few pictures of exactly what we saw when photographing the unit.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
Just as the original P180 and all of its siblings, the P182 SE does not have much at all on the front side when the door is closed. "Antec" is embossed in the top right corner, but other than that only the ports and a lock for the panel are visible.
The case comes with two USB ports, a FireWire port, headphone and microphone jacks, as well as power and reset buttons all accessible on the front of the case. When the door is closed, the power and reset buttons are covered -- a good way to keep prying hands away from your system.
Getting back to the finish and its reflectivity though, the side panel in particular could almost be suitable as a replacement for most bathroom mirrors.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
As soon as the door is opened, however, we are greeted with the familiar sight of a matte black plastic finish encompassing the power and reset buttons. The door is magnetically latched and it takes just the right amount of effort to open it up. It also hinges back all the way to the side of the case for users who would prefer to have it always open. Like its predecessors, the P182 SE allows for four 5.25" drives, one 3.5" drive, and gives easy access to both 120mm fan filters for cleaning.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
One of the bigger additions to the P182 over the P180 is the inclusion of externally accessible switches for the top two fans on the back at the top of the case. This of course makes its way into the special edition as well, which is quite an improvement over having to take off the side panel and find the switch for each tri-cool fan. The soft rubber water tubing ports make their appearance on the back too, for an easier installation of external water cooling kits.
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kellehair - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
Anybody have a list of differences between the 180 and the 182? I have the 180 already but would consider upgrading, assuming it really is an upgrade.cbuchach - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
Yes, I own a P180. The case is great except for the fact that all the cables from the bottom power supply/hard drive compartment route through the panel opening. The new cable routing features, instead of the mirror finish should have been the focus as in my opinion this is the best update to the case.Sunrise089 - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
Did I miss the pricetag for this special finish model?Also, how many fans are being used? It looks like you have the top and rear fans installed, plus another 120mm between the lower HD cage and the power supply. But what about the two front fans, in the upper and lower compartments?
Richey02hg - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
yes you did, last page i believe it says 229 (yikes!)Sunrise089 - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
Nope, that was added after the article was posted.JoshuaBuss - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
newegg has it for $230, as mentioned by someone else in the comments here.JarredWalton - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
Not the SE version, but the standard P182 is a lot more readily available (and cheaper):http://www.atacom.com/program/print_html_new.cgi?c...">ATACOM $130 + shipping
http://www.etech4sale.com/ANTEC_PERFORMANCE_ONE_SE...">Etech4Sale $125 + shipping
http://www.excaliberpc.com/ANTEC_PERFORMANCE_ONE_S...">ExcaliburPC - $127 + shipping
http://www.computerbrain.com/applications/search/i...">Computer Brain - $132 + ship
No idea if these guys are safe or not, but I also found the P182SE for $191 + shipping from http://ozdirect.com/product_info.php?products_id=6...">OZDirect
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=antec+p182&...">Froogle is your fried! :)
yyrkoon - Sunday, April 15, 2007 - link
ATACOM should be, I've ordred from them before. ExcaliburPC IS safe, as is computerbrain, never heard of etchforsale, and anyone putting numbers in their business name, can not be all that sophisticated, now can they ;)Anyhow, look on resellerreview . . .
nicolasb - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
> Also, how many fans are being used?Like the P180, the case comes with three fans, but there are mounting points for another two if you really want to go nuts....
Can anyone tell me what the dimensions of the PSU compartment are? It'd be nice to know which 750W-850W PSUs will actually fit into this case.
giantpandaman2 - Thursday, April 12, 2007 - link
It's a bit of a lower end case, but, shockingly enough, it actually does come with hard drive suspension gear. I picked it up for $60 at a Fry's sale. It's definitely not as pretty as the P180's that were sitting next to it, but I couldn't believe I how cheap I was getting a tooless, quiet (comes with modest sound dampening material) case w/4 HDD suspension mounts and dual air filters. Obviously there's much better cases out there, but not for $60. The only thing it lacked was a front intake fan, easily solved for another $10 though.