Review: Lian-Li PC-A12 chassis

Introduction and specifications

Although Lian-Li has been around since 1983, it was the introduction of a new range of computer accessories and chassis 10 years later that really made the purist geeks amongst us drool over sweet aluminium.

While others jumped on the bandwagon, producing aluminium system chassis that bore a remarkable resemblance to early Lian-Li offerings there are only a few such makers left.

Cooler Master is one of the small number of firms still producing aluminium chassis but not in anything like the volume of, say, six years ago. The recently-reviewed steel-bodied Cooler Master COSMOS is an example of where the market has been going.

However, Lian-Li has stuck by aluminium and, even today, there is hardly any steel running off the production lines in its shiny new factory in Taipei, Taiwan.

The first of a slew of recent Lian-Li chassis to hit the HEXUS labs is the PC-A12, a relatively low-cost - sub-£90 - aluminium chassis that keeps up the tradition.

But, we wonder, have budget constraints impacted on Lian-Li's usual high build quality and design implementation?

Specifications