The bezel is designed to help make the Tenor look like it belongs in home theater entertainment. At first glance it certainly looks like a modern day electrical device, but not everyone will pick it as being a computer system right away. The large waves of brushed aluminum look great and are really set off by the bright blue LED lights. The bezel also features a blue activity light along with a red hard drive light.The right hand side of the bezel actually folds down, giving the user access to three 5.25?and two 3.5?bays. When pushed the door slowly slides down to reveal these external bays. To close the door the user must push it up, locking it into the plastic clips. Thermaltake have added a small 5.25?door within the door; this allows the user to access the bottom optical device without having to fold the large door up and down all the time. This is a quick and relatively easy way of inserting DVD disks. This small drive bay door also uses plastic clips to engage and disengage.
There are no USB, Firewire or Audio ports to be found on the front of this case. Rather Thermaltake has hidden them on the left side of the bezel. This makes more sense as there is no reason for these ugly ports to always be visible. There are a total of five connections which includes a single Firewire port, two USB ports and two Audio jacks. The USB ports for example are handy for connecting a range of peripherals, such as portable storage devices or game controllers.
The rear of this case is quite standard and very well vented. At the left side of the case there is an empty power supply bracket, as this case does not ship with a power supply unit. This is a common occurrence for high-end (custom) cases and very few these days seem to offer a power supply. Personally, I find this a little disappointing, though I do understand why case manufacturers have turned away from providing power supplies.
Purchasing a power supply is no where near as easy as it used to be. With so much variety, picking the right power supply can often be a challenge, especially with all the compatibility issues users are finding at the moment. Given that the range of available hardware is so flexible, the power supply output requirement could range anywhere from 250w through to 600w. Therefore if Thermaltake was to implement a 400watt PSU they would possibly only be providing a viable solution for half their customers.
Further down the case are two 60mm fan grills, both feature nice and quiet 60x25mm fans. Next to the I/O panel and fan grills are seven expansion brackets for PCI/PCIe and AGP devices. The top of the Tenor case is plain and simple along with the right hand side door. The Tenor series comes in two colors being silver and black. The review sample received from Thermaltake was silver.
