BitFenix Pandora Detailed Features

The aluminum panels are great to look at, but as always the interesting features are found underneath. Let’s take a look at some of the more detailed features of the Pandora.

The top dust filter is secured by two spring-loaded plastic clips. A light press on the top mesh, and the whole thing swivels open to reveal a 3.5″ drive mounting point and a 120mm BitFenix Spectre fan. At first glance it looks like a second 120mm fan could fit up here, but unfortunately you’ll need to do some case modding to make that happen as the rubber drive mounts would get in the way. It seems like a missed opportunity, but 240mm radiators won’t fit up here anyway (too close to the motherboard) – you’ll need to use the front panel for those.

The left side view shows a relatively standard micro ATX layout. The bracket in front of the PSU can be removed with two screws, so if you want the extra space virtually any size power supply could fit in the Pandora. This bracket is primarily an SSD mount/wiring management cover so you wouldn’t miss out on too much if it had to be removed. That being said, if you have the window version of the Pandora you’ll probably be inclined to keep it in place to help hide cables (and display your SSD). BitFenix thoughtfully ships the Pandora with the motherboard standoffs pre-installed for most common micro-ATX boards.

The back side of the Pandora shows a relatively bare motherboard tray, but there’s a bit more to see if you look closely. In the upper left of the picture there is a 2.5″ drive mounting point (the two small circular holes are for included rubber grommets through which the drive would be secured by screws, with the other side of the drive held in place by two little nubs). The multiple tie-down points will undoubtedly come in handy when it comes time to put that side panel back on, but the hole in the upper right for the CPU 8-pin connector looks a little cramped.

A single 120mm fan hides behind the front panel and magnetic mesh filter. This panel doesn’t actually need to be removed to access the dust filter; a very appreciated decision since you can’t remove the front panel without also removing both side panels due to the wrap-around curves. We also get our first look at the included LCD display which is included in the ICON versions of the Pandora (this chassis also ships in a Core edition sans LCD).

The ICON version of the Pandora adds a 2.4″ LCD display (320×240 TFT) behind a tinted window in the front panel. It uses a USB header on a motherboard for power and allows one to upload their own custom image to the display through a simple executable program (you can use larger images, but the application will stretch/resize them to fit the display). By default it will display the BitFenix “phoenix” logo, and an alternate is included in the display application (which you can download here). Even though the default picture is in black and white, the LCD is a full color display.

A quick glance at the bottom floor of the Pandora showcases the cable management/SSD display bracket up front – make sure to take note of the multiple tie-down points on this bracket, which makes this doubly useful for keeping things tidy. It’s a bit close to that front panel though, so if you opt to add a push/pull arrangement of fans on a 240mm radiator you’ll need to remove this bracket (one layer of fans would fit without a problem). The mechanisms for holding the side panels are also visible in this picture – while they seem to have survived the build process without a hitch, I do hope the plastic used won’t become brittle over time. While snap-on panels are very nice, my experience with an FT03 Mini makes me approach these plastic pieces with a fair amount of trepidation (to SilverStone’s credit, they’ve been great about replacement parts) – at least the posts are aluminum rather than plastic as in the FT03 Mini.

The SSD/cable management bracket doesn’t obscure this side of the chassis, so it’s easy to hide extra cables if a non-modular power supply is used (a nice move, considering the slim dimensions of the Pandora). This bracket conceals a 3.5″ and 2.5″ drive mount location in the floor of the Pandora as well.