Lian Li Spider Case Dangles at CeBIT 2010

Themed hardware is not exactly a new trend in the IT industry, as companies have been known to add decorations to their various hardware components when it meant they would score more sales. Still, in most cases, such a “theme” would consist of a special bezel, a film print or a special color pattern or texture. Lian Li, however, seems bent on standing out from the crowd by making devices that more closely imitate specimens from the animal kingdom, with one of the more recent models being the Spider case.

Unlike what some end-users might think, the case is not just a box with a spider sticker or pattern put on top of it. The case itself is actually designed in the shape of a spider and has four legs, the torso and the abdomen, measuring 520 x 300 x 485 mm.

The front side of the chassis is designed to hold the motherboard, which can only use the mini-ITX form factor, whereas the power supply is mounted into the 'abdomen,' otherwise known as the casing's (or, in this case, the spider's) rear section. Due to its design, however, the chassis is not exactly the most capacious. It can not house motherboards larger than the aforementioned Mini-ITX form factor and has a single slim ODD. In addition, for storage, the Lian Li Spider has a single, internal 3.5-inch drive bay.

Most often, a graphics card, CPU, memory product, chassis or any other PC part would be seen as a beast only if its performance severely overcame that of most, if not all, competing products. The spider-shaped case will likely be among the first PC components to be called “monstrous” or “creature” without boasting any sort of bleeding-edge performance. The Spider is currently on display at CeBIT 2010 in Hanover, Germany, along with other models from the Pitstop series.

Currently, it is not completely clear which end-user segment the invention is targeting, but Lian Li will supposedly make it available during the second quarter, at a price of about $150.



Live report by Traian Teglet from CeBIT 2010 in Hanover, Germany.