Cooler Master CM Storm Gaming, Cases & Coolers - Linus Tech Tips CES 2013
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
3,448 words · ~17 min read
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welcome to Linus Tech tips at CES 2013 our trip to the show this year is
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powered by Corsair maker of quality PC components and peripherals our trusted
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storage partner is Seagate technology and our trusted networking partner is
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linkis the quickfire is already cooler Master's most popular mechanical
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keyboard but that doesn't mean they're going to stop changing things about it
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and I don't mean changing things like randomly changing things that aren't
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necessarily good things I meaning changes that have been asked for so you
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see this is an older version this has sort of CM Storm branding here it has CM
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Storm branding sort of over here on the right by the arrow keys it's got some CM
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Storm branding on the top of the keyboard the feedback from Gamers that
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Cooler Master received was look we like these premium mechanical keyboards
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they're awesome we love the quickfire but what we don't like is having branding all over it we want a cleaner
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look so they introduced sort of the newer revision which has a very very a
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very very plain very clean look as well
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as just a small CM Storm logo up here at the top now this is an existing product
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so this is this is nothing that new the quickfire stealth on the other hand
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changes the quickfire making it again even cleaner so moving the writing to
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the side of the key like this does a couple of things number one is it makes
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the keyboard look extremely stealthy and very cool from the top and number two is
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it actually increases the durability of the keys themselves so even though
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they're laser etched there is is still the the eventual chance that the writing
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can wear down or it can become less visible but because of the way that
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they've done this it is AB actually absolutely impossible so no matter how
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greasy or oily or Cheeto stained your fingers are you are not going to be able
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to affect the way the typing appears on the keyboard now this guy over here is
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new this is basically a longer version
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of the quickfire this is the XT which stands for extension or extended or
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extreme tactile or whatever you want it to stand for basically this is full 104
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key layout so you get the number pad in addition to everything you already like
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about the quickfire one thing that's missing from the quickfire is the cable
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routing here at the bottom so the reason for that is that they've actually
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decreased there you go they've decreased the profile of keyboard it is 28 millim
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at its thickest and 18 mm at its thinnest making it the thinnest
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mechanical keyboard using Cherry MX switches on the market they've also
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added and I believe oh shoot I think I missed something over here
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ah yes okay I missed something on both of these so they've added an 8X pulling
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rate option to both the stealth and the XT that makes it the fastest input
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available for a mechanical keyboard which is uh if you're looking for every
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little Competitive Edge obviously a factor for you so right instead of the
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cable routing on the bottom they've just gone with a full-size USB port although
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they are going to implement it a little bit differently I think on the final
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model where it'll be kind of coming out at an angle so it's a little bit easier
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to route while the four types of cherrymx
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switches that we're most familiar with are Blues Browns Reds and blacks there
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are actually other kinds of switches from Cherry now some of the reasons that
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we haven't seen these as often is maybe they aren't as ideal so you know maybe
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people don't like them as much or maybe they're more expensive and companies
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haven't wanted to implement them now Cooler Master is taking almost every model they have and throwing a whole
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bunch of different switch types had it because their idea is that look we're
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not going to say okay you're a typist you want Blues you're a gamer you want
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Reds we're going to say you're a whoever you are and you want whatever you want and go for it so this is the trigger
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green this is the first fully MX green
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keyboard that I have ever encountered and both slick and I are in perfect
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agreement that it is without a doubt
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pretty much as good as it gets it feels like a heavier blue so it has an 80 g
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spring in it and what that means is as you push down two things it eliminates a
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bit of the double tap issue that you have with Blues where the actuation point is actually a little bit before
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the click so you don't have that that audible feedback for the actuation point
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on a blue here they line up much more closely and it also gives you more well
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more resistance and more push back so it feels more like a buckling spring if
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you've ever used a model M this is as close as it gets with a Cherry MX key
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switch um without you having to sort of find an old model M on eBay or something
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along those lines now it's got some of the customizability that we've seen with
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other Cooler Master keyboards so you can change the mode of the keys you got
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breathing you've got a gaming mode that lights up your arrow keys you can adjust
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the brightness you can turn the LEDs off out right but what I think is the
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coolest feature about it is the fact that you can fully program any key so if
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you decide okay I want a Windows key over here I don't want a storm key you
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reprogram that to a Windows key it has a few macro profiles as well profile keys
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and if you decide okay I want my delete key here then you can do that the only
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key on the keyboard that cannot be reprogrammed is the one right here I
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also really like the implementation of the wrist rest here I know that large
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wrist rests sometimes don't look as sexy as a very small compact wrist rest but I
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can tell you guys right now that for some people my wife being one of them
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she refuses to type on anything that doesn't have a wrist rest a belt this
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big so the only keyboard out there for her is a steel series 7g as soon as I
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get my hands on one of these I'm going to get her to try and see what she thinks because she's a much faster type
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of than me she does about 145 words per minute and uh she's kind of one of my
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one of my go-to people but slick is the only one I have here you'll you'll have
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to do for today's slick and he says sounds great I love it too these
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products don't actually exist yet there code name Lux or something like that and
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they're sort of referred to as The Cooler Master CM Storm aluminum series
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or something what they are is they're kind of a concept that they're working
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on right now for customizable keyboards now you might have seen back in the day
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uh I think there was I forget who it was but they were custom painting Logitech
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G50 I can tell you guys right now the Finish you're going to get painting something
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like made of plastic is never going to be as good as you can do with something
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metal also the fact that you can't take them apart makes it much more difficult
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to do you have to have more specialized equipment and it's just it's never going
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to look as good so what they've done is they've integrated aluminum metal
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aspects into a full range of gaming Pur here so we've got a headset that has two
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removable plates one on each side that allow you to take it off you can paint
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it you can color it you can take it off completely if you want it to look kind
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of goofy but that's totally up to you is sort of the point there's also a
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keyboard that has the entire top plate
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removable so you want to put your favorite game graphic let's say you're
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let's say you're a partner of cooler Masters you want to release uh you know
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a game branded keyboard or even you want to do like a cool giveaway so you grab a
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few of these you send them to a sweet paint shop you get some really cool airbrushing done on them boom you're
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done so it's the pretty much the meant to be a template for the easiest to
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customize peripherals there's also a mouse and a mouse pad so you can see
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here's the aluminum plate on this guy this is full aluminum and while I
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probably don't think I'd recommend painting a mouse pad I guess you'd have
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the option if you really want to the last thing I missed here before was the
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control RX and what's cool about this guy is it's uh sorry polyurethane back
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correct polyurethane back and it's very very thick so this is great for land
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parties where you don't always get your own table and sometimes you're stuck on
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sort of the butt crack between the tables so what you could do is you take
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this and at least as long as you don't have a huge lip you're going to have a
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reasonably smooth surface bridging that Gap because it's so thick and because
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the back is so stiff it's also extremely sticky probably the most grippy back
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I've ever felt on a mouse pad and I think that pretty much wraps it up for
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CM Storm so they've got a lot of exciting stuff going on don't miss any
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of our CES 2013 coverage by making sure you're subscribed to lonus Tech tips not
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content to just make PC cases anymore Cooler Master has on display at CES a
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fairly wide range of Apple accessories so I want to start with the rock
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basically it's a sort of No Frills nice
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heavy I mean the name is appropriate cuz it feels and looks about like a rock
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except like a more of a glossy elegant Rock and the idea is you take your iPad
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or I don't know presumably you could even check an iPhone there if you felt
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like it there you go you could do that or you take your MacBook you put it in
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there it slides in pretty nicely it's got a nice rubberized finish on the
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inside so it's not going to slip out or go anywhere you put that next to your
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computer if you use an external display and it's sort of a stand it's just a
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stand speaking of just a stand this is the Jazz Pro which does not stand for
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just a stand Pro but what this guy does is it allows you to put your Mac next to
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an external display it's probably not that practical from a sitting there
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using the computer perspective and I just hit the power button I'm very sorry about that but if you're going to put it
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next to a display then and use actually an external keyboard and mouse then
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something something like that could work very well for you moving right along
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over here we have the ren so this guy is
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an iPad iPad Mini holder and I actually
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didn't get briefed on how it oh look there's a button there you go I didn't
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get briefed on how it works but what it does is it locks into several different
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positions depending on whether you want to be in portrait mode with a full-size
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iPad landscape mode with a fullsize iPad or in portrait mode with an iPad Mini it
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rotates like this so it allows you to kind of take your tablet and prop it up
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like this take your tablet prop it up like this it also comes with a couple of
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accessories so this guy allows you to hang it off of sort of a horizontal
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surface this is a very thick table so that's not going to work for me but if you're going to hang it off a bookshelf
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or something like that then you just slot this into the back
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here there you go hang it off something sort of rotate it wherever you want it
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to go and then it also comes with another optional one right here which
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allows you to clip it to a vertical surface so then you could sort of rotate
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it out and around this way and sort of I I figured my my pitch to them was you
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should can you should sell them as a 10 pack so that the customers can actually
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put them all over their house and then just carry the tablet around with them
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and have it kind of you know like hanging up here above the shower and
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sort of in the kitchen and wherever else it happens to be this right here is not
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actually available yet this is The Cooler Master MacBook Air they are going
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directly up against apple with this no I'm just kidding um it's actually the
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stand underneath of it so this is an evolutionary step forward from the Jazz
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Pro where not only can you adjust the height but you can actually also adjust
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the angle so I don't know you're a DJ you're someone who wants to use their
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computer and have it sit on a nice solid aluminum stand with a rubberized base
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and rubberized grips it has a very very nice feel to it I mean look how thick
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the aluminum is here this most of this stuff is available on the Apple Store so
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it's all Apple approved Apple authorized accessories so if you're into Apple then
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you might care about that sort of thing last but not least we have the duo so
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this guy right here slides together like this so you can use it as an iPad Mini
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stand or presumably a full-size iPad stand although I haven't tested that
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personally on the bottom you see a couple of different things so you have a
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pass through for headphones you have a pass through for I don't know what the
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difference between battery and battery is here I guess they allow you to run two cables into it um either way when
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you pop it out here you can see you can
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there we go you can actually plug because of the iPhone 5 has the
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headphone jack on the bottom you can plug your audio cable in there and you
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can just kind of have it sitting in the dock next to this one you can kind of
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hide it a little bit inside this one you can put it completely inside this one
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and it's got like a nice rubberized feel to it and this is a solid piece of
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aluminum all down here so that pretty much wraps up the Apple accessories
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don't miss any of our CES 2013 coverage and don't forget to subscribe to lus
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Tech tips there are bucket loads of new desktop products at The Cooler Master
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Suite we're going to start with the Centurion 6 this brings back sort of the
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uh the metal accent and the that that that feel of sort of metal quality that
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I think has been missing a little bit from the $ 69.99 price point because
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that's where they're going to be positioned this strip down here on both
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the silver accented version and the black accented version is aluminum and
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check this out guys these are not plastic meshes we are done with plastic
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meshes on $70 cases these are actually metal meshes which gives I I hope you
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can see this in the video but in person it gives it a better look and it gives
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it a better overall feel to the chassis other than that it's a pretty something
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we're pretty used to seeing on the inside so it has support for dual 120 mm
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RADS in the top and it has a removable cage here so you can put in as long a
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graphics card as you could possibly want to have this guy right here is a little
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bit unique this is the elite 241 it's a very very small chassis and the idea is
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it fits an ATX motherboard and it's at a very very low cost and it's small and
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narrow so there you go next up here this is kind of a
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concept ch right now this actually repositions the water cooling radiator
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to the side so check this out dual 120
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mm rat on the side what this allows you to do is save on the height of the case
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so if you had for example a little all clove you wanted to chuck your water
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cooled system into this would allow you to save at least a couple inches on the
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top of the case in order to make that fit so the radiator is it's slipping the
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radiator is right here which gives you not as ideal of an air flow situation as
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if you had it in the top of the case but it allows this case to come in at a
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lower price point because it has a top power supply and it doesn't have to have
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that extra height last but not least we've got the n200 and this is sort of
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Representative of what will be a bit of a new look for some Cooler Master cases
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so it's got this is a plastic mesh again but it's just sort of a a cleaner look
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so the half line has been has done really well and that aesthetic has been
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great and it's going to continue but they're also experimenting with a few
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different things as well so the idea behind this guy
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is that you can have check this out a a dual 120 mm rad and up to another 120 mm
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rad in the back can throw a couple hard drives in there and there's lots of
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space so it's an idea the idea is it's an matx chassis that gives you options
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so you're not going to be able to put in a ton of hard drives and a long graphics
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card and a bunch of water cooling but you can do kind of any two of the three
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without sacrificing very much at all
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this is the Scout 2 ghost white so they've got a couple different colors on
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display you can check out the inside it's just basically showcasing all the
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really cool stuff that Cooler Master has going on in terms of their technology so
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they've got their Iceberg cooler in there you got your removable cages
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you've got your support for liquid cooling I really love the handles on the
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top of this case they're extremely robust they're extremely strong this is
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the case that I actually took in my video where I unboxed it lifted it up by
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the by the handle alone on the top over my head shook it around and it didn't
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have any Flex to it whatsoever thank you for checking out
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our coverage of The Cooler Master desktop products at CES 20103 don't miss
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any of our CES 20103 videos and don't forget to subscribe to lus Tech tips