I got my 6th batch white case on Friday and built it at the weekend, here are some thoughts.
Outside:
1. It's big, but in a good way.
I'm coming from what's essentially the same size as a normal (non-gaming) Mini-ITX system, specifically a dell Optiplex 790 USFF. While I knew from the measurements the Sentry was going to be bigger what surprised me is how much difference the extra size makes.
My previous PC has always felt like just another item on the desktop, something lost among the clutter. The extra height and blank face of the Sentry really makes it stand out. I'm glad I went for the white, the black seems like it wouldn't have worked as well.
2. The finish was well chosen.
The matte, slightly textured finish suits the case's density and colour very well. The quality of application isn't perfect,, there are probably a dozen places around the case where there's a rogue particle or paint blob. They're all very small and not visible beyond about 50cm though.
3. The power switch could be better.
It seems solid enough but the feedback from pressing it doesn't have that special feel, and the red light tends to turn pinkish in brighter ambient light.
4. The vertical stand mechanism is very good.
Although I still can't make up my mind whether I like a black stand for the white case or not.
Assembly:
5. I had to bend the riser slot down substantially. Even after having followed the issues in the threads it took me a while before I could be sure that was the issue. When feeling underneath the bottom of the metal flap was flush with the edge of the riser so it needed to be bent down by the thickness of the metal. It's actually an awkward thickness and it took me a while to find something I could get into the gap to bend it with. I ended up using an IDE connector.
6. The riser itself was long enough that it protruded into the SATA drive space. Looking through other people's internal photos this seems to be normal and like a lot of owners I found myself using the mounting next to the power supply instead.
7. This meant that the manual's suggested assembly order was wrong as I then couldn't route cables with the drive in place. I think I ended up doing Motherboard, Power Supply, Riser, Graphics card, power cables, USB, 2.5" drive.
8. I used a Kolink 450W SFX PSU which is the same Sirfa platform as most of the rest but came with glorious unsleeved cables. After my last couple of builds used sleeved cables I'd forgotten how good the traditional sort were, they work so much better in small form factor systems. It used the type of SATA power connectors that are a right angle to the cable which I thought might be a problem but they worked perfectly fine on my OCZ Trion 150 in the aformentioned slot.
9. My Gigabyte B250N Phoenix-Wifi fitted well. I thought it wasn't going to at first, but after a slight push the backplate clicked into place and then the motherboard sat properly over the standoffs. They were very slightly off-center, but the screws went in without a problem.
10. It helps to have a thin screwdriver for the case, without one I'd have struggled to do up with hard drive screw with the GPU frame attached or the motherboard screw with the power supply connector above it. I used a jewellers screwdriver which worked well, I suspect an electrician's screwdriver would be too long.
Other:
11. I get some slight turbulence at low speed from the power supply fan. This does seem to disappear at higher speeds which my power supply does ramp up to despite my relatively modest load (G4560 + RX 460 4GB). The system as a whole is quite a bit noisier than when it was running in a temporary case and the power supply seems to be the largest component of that.
It would be interesting to see how Sentry with a FlexATX PSU compares, or an SFX PSU modified to a FlexATX airflow layout (60mm fan in the rear & mesh front). I know the FlexATX wires would have to protrude into the GPU compartment, but that wouldn't be an issue for all setups so if anyone has one available I'd love to see a test.
I miss the days when you could get a decent GPU for under 25W, I wish game developers would stop requiring such power hungry hardware purely for entertainment.
12. The screw labelling had be a bit confused until I realised that the count of the A screwed included the ones already attached to the case. I had to line up the three black screws in order of length to tell them apart.
You may also want to change the diagram for the feet assembly x4 to emphasise that each comes in three parts,
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