News Lian Li announces Ebonsteel series

Today Lian Li announced a new series of cases in a lower price bracket, made of steel.

Lian Li has been known for its signature brushed aluminum aesthetic for decades. For many years, a number of customers have requested more affordable alternatives. The Ebonsteel series is intended to provide this option for those who seek the best value in PC cases. While these chassis are built with steel rather than aluminum, they are still very much Lian Li cases - tool-less building features, grommeted panel cutouts for cable management, vibration-dampened PSU mounts and drive cages, removable mesh filters on fan mounts - they include many of the bells and whistles of a typical Lian Li case.

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My opinion: Lian-Li doesn't need this, they have other problems than price range. It devalues their quality brand and it reinforces the wrong idea that steel is a lesser quality material than aluminium.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Damned, are these Lian Li made, really ? I'll pass...

 

[jeshikat]

Interesting. They used to have cases like these under the Lancool branding so I wonder why they decided to ditch that and sell steel cases under their own name.

 

[EdZ]

Damned, are these Lian Li made, really ? I'll pass...

If they're manufactured by Lian Li themselves rather than outsourced to another plant, that means Lian Li may be an additional option for producing custom cases from steel rather than aluminium.

 

[iFreilicht]

If they're manufactured by Lian Li themselves rather than outsourced to another plant, that means Lian Li may be an additional option for producing custom cases from steel rather than aluminium.

Jup, this is the most interesting thing here. It's interesting that they're expanding their toolset, and I wonder why exactly they chose to do that.


The cases themselves aren't all that interesting in my eyes (as they're all ATX towers), and the pictures aren't really enough to judge the visuals, but at least with the PC-K6 and K6S it seems like they've tried to maintain the look of their understated aluminium enclosures, so maybe it could help to change the perception of steel as a material for PC cases.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Nice to see Lili working steel ... but those cheap chassis and fugly design ... this is not Lili for me.

 

[jeshikat]

If they're manufactured by Lian Li themselves rather than outsourced to another plant, that means Lian Li may be an additional option for producing custom cases from steel rather than aluminium.

I seriously doubt Lian Li invested in the equipment to make steel cases themselves there in Taiwan when there are so many companies in China they could outsource to.

 

[Ceros_X]

Not gonna lie, besides being big I like the look of the three cases. Totally not at all bad looking cases.

 

[EdZ]

I seriously doubt Lian Li invested in the equipment to make steel cases themselves there in Taiwan when there are so many companies in China they could outsource to.

True, but even if Lian Li are acting as a middleman, it may still be worth it to be working with a known actor who are experienced with custom projects and don't completely suck at QC, vs. trying to find and work with a good manufacturer directly.

 

[jeshikat]

These cases are made with stamping though so that'd be out of the budget of indie case designers.

 

[iFreilicht]

Depends on how they exactly did it. If they're using stamping presses with multiple tools to form each panel, it might be that they now have made tooling for the I/O cutout, PCIe slots, fan meshes or countersinks that they can use however they want. If that was the case, that would be very well suited for indies.

If they made one die for each panel, though, which is more likely, it's not helping at all.

 

[jeshikat]

If they made one die for each panel, though, which is more likely, it's not helping at all.

Since there are injection-molded plastic parts I lean toward single-hit tooling for the metal parts.

 

[Necere]

These are outsourced stamped steel cases. Not sure who the OEM is, but I know LL is not making them in-house. They are also likely just front panel redesigns of pre-existing chassis, rather than all-new designs.

 

[Josh | NFC]

I seriously doubt Lian Li invested in the equipment to make steel cases themselves there in Taiwan when there are so many companies in China they could outsource to.

Out of curiosity, what would Lian Li need to change to work with steel? It cuts cleaner and faster than aluminum, and bends easier with less precise tooling. I also feel like the LANCOOL chassis were built by Lian Li...they used the same folds and design, it just was steel...I owned both the steel and aluminum versions of Lancool/Lian Li chassis side by side as I was using them for installs 6 or so years ago.

 

[jeshikat]

Out of curiosity, what would Lian Li need to change to work with steel?

To make steel versions of their current cases wouldn't really need anything different. But these Ebonsteel cases look to be made using stamping which isn't Lian Li's thing.

 

[Necere]

To make steel versions of their current cases wouldn't really need anything different. But these Ebonsteel cases look to be made using stamping which isn't Lian Li's thing.

Yeah, they could make steel cases the same way that they're currently making aluminum cases. I think the reason they don't - and I'm just speculating now - is that using NCT/laser and manual bending is more expensive than stamping (on a per-unit basis), and they couldn't charge the same premium for a steel case as they do for aluminum. People think aluminum = premium, but in actuality the material cost isn't necessarily a large factor.

LL can do stamping in-house, and actually used to stamp some of their aluminum cases, but at some point they moved to their current model of production, which has much lower set-up costs for each model and therefore allows for faster iteration and more models.

 

[confusis]

It's like Rolls Royce making a budget hatchback. ick

 

[|||]

It's like Rolls Royce making a budget hatchback. ick

Aston Martin Cygnet

 

[confusis]

*pukes*

 

[Phuncz]

That's an "upgraded" Toyota iQ, which is about the most SFF car there is in my opinion*. It might be ugly but it sure as hell has the space efficiency to back it up

Personally I wouldn't compare Lian-Li to Rolls-Royce, I doubt there is even a car brand that can be compared to it. It's just sad to see them devolve into this kind of low quality case design while the market is open for so much innovation which is completely ignored. If there is ever a case brand in need of serious soul searching, it's Lian-Li.

They need to stop churning out random cases at 300-500$ and hope they'll strike gold, they need to stop flooding the market with mediocre silver-colored boxes that somehow manage to fit a PC while assembling. Simple and limited product line-ups, detailed and researched design, a seperate division for "projects" that people without boats or train fetishes actually want and let 'r rip.

* warning: might be biased.