Corsair Carbide Series Air 240 Review

Corsair Carbide Series Air 240 Review

Manufacturer: Corsair
UK price (as reviewed): £69.95 (inc VAT)
US price (as reviewed): $89.95 {ex TAX)

Corsair's support for the smaller PC form factors is certainly a growing one and the Computex trade show revealed two more sub-ATX cases from this popular case manufacturer. The first we're looking at today and it's called the Carbide Air 240. If you're familiar with cube cases or Corsair's cases in general, you'll most likely remember the Carbide Air 540 , which picked up a rare Premium Grade award for its great cooling, original design and reasonable price tag. The Carbide Air 240 is essentially a miniature version of this, catering exclusively for micro-ATX and mini-ITX formfactors (in the same model).


The main feature that stood out with the Air 540 was its dual-chamber design, with the motherboard and related components in one side and the storage and PSU in the other. It kept things neat, although the case did sport a rather wide footprint as a result, with a width of 332mm. This is considerably larger even than exceptionally big cases such as Corsair's own Obsidian 900D or Nanoxia's Deep Silence 6


Thankfully, the Air 240 doesn't suffer from the same problem. At 260mm wide, it's only a tad wider than the BitFenix Prodigy - it's actually 8cm shorter and just 4cm deeper than the BitFenix case too so overall the Carbide Air 240 is relatively compact all things considered. Externally it looks very much the same as its larger sibling, with a left-mounted mesh and right-mounted front panel, which offers two USB 3 ports plus the usual buttons and minijacks.


The mesh and grilles continue over the top of the case but the design is dominated by an enormous side window. There's no external 5.25in bays to spoil the view, though (although this means most fan controllers and optical drives are a no-no too) and the PSU and storage located in the other compartment behind the motherboard, the view should be pretty tidy, even if you're not the best at cable tidying. Build quality is good and this is a very sturdy case although the vast majority of the exterior is made of plastic. However, this does keep the weight down to less than 6kg, making the Air 240 a great LAN gaming case.


Like many cases of this type, the Air 240 can be used upright with the grille in a vertical stance or on its side, with the window at the top. To cater for this, even the case badge at the front can be rotated and the case turns quite easily into portrait mode for desk use too. There are no case feet fitted as standard for this reason - instead, four rubber adhesive feet are included with the case, which you can mount to whichever panel you end up using as a base. This is quite important because both potential base panels have large air vents in them so raising the case up by a centimeter or two could well boost cooling.


The far side panel sports a large magnetic dust filter that slots neatly into a recess that hides the side fan slots. It's a little loose, though, despite the powerful magnets, so you'll want to secure this if you're moving the case around else it may get knocked off. There's also a tool-free PCI expansion slot latch and as you can probably see from the photos, the case has quite a few thumb screws. The simple reason for this is that every panel is removable. This provides access to the various drive and fan mounts - more on these over the page.

Specifications

• Dimensions (mm) 260 x 320 x 397(W x D x H)
  
• Material Steel, plastic
  
• Available colours Black, arctic white
  
• Weight 5.6kg
  
• Front panel Power, reset, 2 x USB 3, stereo, microphone
  
• Drive bays 3 x internal 3.5/2.5in, 3 x internal 2.5in
  
• Form factor(s) Micro-ATX, Mini-ITX
  
• Cooling 2 x 120mm front fan mounts (fans included), 2 x 120mm top fan mounts (1 fan included), 2 x rear 80mm fan mounts (fans not included), 2 x 120mm bottom fan mounts (fans not included)
  
• CPU cooler clearance 120mm
  
• Maximum graphics card length290mm
  
• ExtrasTool-free expansion card slots, adjustable fan mounts (bottom only), removable drive cages, magnetic dust filters