Lian Li PC-Q28 Review

Lian Li Industrial Co. LTD was founded in 1983 and are one of the largest and most reputable manufacturer of aluminium PC cases, who hail from Taiwan. With over twenty years of experience in making cases, Lian Li are well known for creating some unique designs and all importantly some of the highest quality products.

Today we are looking at the PC-Q28B which is a Play3r.net exclusive as this case is currently not available to purchase in the UK.  One of our writers was lucky enough to get hold of one for me to review.  Like all Lian Li cases, the PC-Q28 is a solid piece of craftsmanship.  The body and side panels are made entirely from aluminium with the main chassis of the case made from stainless steel.

Features:

• Connection: Two I/O ports including two USB 3.0
• Ventilation: Two pre-installed 140mm and 120mm fans
• Expansion: Removable Drive Cage Supporting Four 2.5 HDD and One 2.5 HDD/SSD, Drive rack in the bottom of the chassis, where you can mount two 3.5″ drives. It also support two 2.5″ drives or a 3.5″ and a 2.5″ drives.

As you can see, the case exterior is made from brushed aluminium and the quality finish on this case is where Lian Li shines ahead of its competitors.

The case has a single power button situated at the front of the case, two usb 3.0 ports on the right hand side and  also sports headphone and microphone jacks.  Interestingly Lian Li also supply an USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 adapter for anyone using a motherboard that does not support USB 3.0.  The front of the case also has a removable cover for anyone using a disk drive in their build.

The side panels are each made from a single solid sheet of aluminium with the same brushed paint work as the rest of the case.  They are held in place with a single screw in the top middle of the panel.  To remove the side panel you simply undo the screw and slide the panel up.  Attached to the inside of the panel are four plastic clips which hook into cut outs within the chassis allowing it to attach to the side of the case.

The case has four fitted rubber feet which raise the case by one centimetre off of the ground.  With this small clearance and the use of air intake from the bottom of the case it is not recommended to place the PC-Q28 onto a carpeted surface.  At the rear of the case we can see the two PCI expansion slots and the rear I/O.  Interestingly the power supply does not attach directly to the case but Lian Li have chosen to fit this case with a PSU bracket.  Simply attach the bracket to the PSU using the screws provided and then use thumb screws to fit the PSU in place.

Having had this case for several days now I have really grown to like the simplistic design implemented by Lian Li.  As with cases of this type, they fall into two categories, the first being flashy and colourful for small form factor LAN Rigs and the other being sleek and clean looking for the discerning HTPC user.  The brushed aluminium gives this case a fantastic clean and crisp look, the entire case feels solid in my hands and weighs next to nothing.

Lets take a look at the interior.

As we can see from the images below the inside of the case is extremely functional.  Supporting four 3.5″ HDDs and a single 2.5″ HDD or an SSD in the hard drive bay.  This bay is also removable and increases the space allowance for a full size graphics card.

The base of the case also has a removable hard drive tray which also supports two 3.5” HDDs and two 2.5” HDDs.

The motherboard tray is simply two stainless steel bars which the motherboard tray and stand offs screw into, which are held in place by rivets.  Seeing as this case only supports Mini-ITX motherboards, this made perfect sense to us.  As you can see, Lian Li also have supplied two fans with this case. A single 140mm front intake fan which draws air through the bottom of the case, which is also pre fitted with a dust filter and it also comes with a 120mm exhaust in the roof of the case.

Fitting the motherboard was a simple task, simply install the I/O shield and then place the motherboard into place and secure with the four supplied screws.  For this build we used a MSI H61–E35 B3 revision to showcase the Lian Li  PC-Q28 with hardware inside.  Due to the fact that the CPU Cooler we had available would not fit inside this case, we chose to use the stock Intel Cooler provided with the CPU.  Before moving ahead and installing the rest of the components we attempted to test fit the PSU we had available.  Unfortunately the PSU we had at the time was larger than the case would allow us to fit.

Because of this we did not continue with the system installation.  This is a real shame but we will soon to be rectifying that problem.

I really like the simple design of this case.  The brushed aluminium finish on the paint work, the simple power button and the discrete front optical drive bay cover for anyone who isn’t using an optical drive in their build. I would also like to point out  Lian Li also supply a 5.25” Bezel which will match the rest of the cases brushed finish.

This case is designed for a single purpose in my opinion, as a home theatre PC as it clearly fits the bill for one.  Not only does it have such a simple a clean design, it would not look out of place next too an expensive television. I will also add the fact that it supports graphics cards up to 290mm which is a great feature.

The only issue that arose during the installation of components was the power supply. The one I had available would not fit as it was larger than the maximum supported PSU.  This is obviously to save space within the case.

Pros

• Solid Build Design
• Supports Several Hard Drives
• Removable Hard Drive Cage
• Pre Install Fans
• Tool-less Design
• USB 3.0 Support
• Air Intake filter pre- installed

Cons

• Full size PSU not Supported
• Tall CPU Coolers not support
• Low clearance under case