Cryorig is bringing the Taku PC case to market despite Kickstarter shortcoming

[Shawn Knight]

PC cooling specialist Cryorig turned to Kickstarter earlier this year to fund production of Taku, a retro-inspired Mini-ITX PC chassis that doubles as a monitor stand. Solid effort aside, the campaign came up well short of its $100,000 funding goal with just $48,051 raised from 138 backers.

It looked like the end of the road for the case but this story will have a happy ending after all.

In what can only be viewed as good news for interested parties, Cryorig has elected to move forward with production despite the setback.

The company said the response from the PC community and media outlets was enough to encourage them to continue with the project alongside co-developer and manufacturing partner Lian Li.

The chassis, if you recall, is meant to house a high-end Mini-ITX machine in a space-saving design. It utilizes a slide-out hardware tray with support for two 2.5-inch drives, a single 3.5-inch hard drive and a graphics card measuring up to 280mm in length. CPU coolers up to 48mm tall are also compatible.

Cryorig, which has been working on the case for over two years, will launch Taku in the US, Japan and Taiwan in December at an MSRP of $299. Kickstarter backers will have the option to pre-order the case with delivery guaranteed by the end of the year. Backers will also receive a complementary Cryorig C7 cooler.

Cryorig will bring the case to additional markets in the first half of 2018, we’re told.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/71809-cryorig-bringing-taku-pc-case-market-despite-kickstarter.html

 

[MonsterZero]

$299 for that thing? Nah I'm good, I'd rather not burn up my PC by trying to make it look like a tray table.

 

[BSim500]

Looking at the photo, it's one of the dumbest designs I've ever seen. Another "too posh to have useful USB ports / audio on the front", so the 'solution' (according to the photo) is to put them at the side through a "window" which will snap off any USB sticks accidentally left in if you open the drawer...

I really don' t understand modern case designers. We spent years putting up with beige "Desktop AT" cases that sat on the desk underneath the huge CRT monitors and we all positively wept tears of joy when floor-standing tower ATX / MATX units + TFT's came along that freed up all that desk space, plus puts the case typically 1.5-2.0x further away from your ears reducing fan noise by a "free" 3-6db. Now modern Mini-ITX is all about putting "space saving" fat super-wide large-footprint cases back on the desk, promptly reducing the amount of usable desk space you have whilst bringing fans (often smaller and noisier to fit tiny cases) closer to your ears again vs $40 MATX towers neatly tucked away under the desk, all whilst doubling / tripling the price for the "privilege"...

 

[JaredTheDragon]

How does it take two years to develop something so simple? This is just a money-pit. In that two years, they basically donated the entire Kickstarter fun to two or three staffers who sat around and did nothing. Amazing.

 

[kapital98]

It's hard to understand the price unless I'm missing something.

Still, I really like the concept. the old, flat desktops were completely different than this. They had horizontal PCI/AGP slots and did not allow a full fledged GPU. Plus, the PSUs were often low wattage -- just enough to feed the CPU and onboard graphics really.

Great design and, hopefully, with time, the price can go down as other people start mimicking the style. I'd buy this design for the right price.

 

[torchyear]

I'm looking forward to the Gamer's Nexus thermal testing of this case.

 

[Reehahs]

Looking at the photo, it's one of the dumbest designs I've ever seen. Another "too posh to have useful USB ports / audio on the front", so the 'solution' (according to the photo) is to put them at the side through a "window" which will snap off any USB sticks accidentally left in if you open the drawer...

I really don' t understand modern case designers. We spent years putting up with beige "Desktop AT" cases that sat on the desk underneath the huge CRT monitors and we all positively wept tears of joy when floor-standing tower ATX / MATX units + TFT's came along that freed up all that desk space, plus puts the case typically 1.5-2.0x further away from your ears reducing fan noise by a "free" 3-6db. Now modern Mini-ITX is all about putting "space saving" fat super-wide large-footprint cases back on the desk, promptly reducing the amount of usable desk space you have whilst bringing fans (often smaller and noisier to fit tiny cases) closer to your ears again vs $40 MATX towers neatly tucked away under the desk, all whilst doubling / tripling the price for the "privilege"...

I want my PC case to double up as a foot rest.

 

[cartera]

I'm a bit late here but I think it's too big. It should be smaller and aimed squarely at the HTPC market.

Oh, and a third of the price.

 

[stevebez]

... Another "too posh to have useful USB ports / audio on the front", so the 'solution' (according to the photo) is to put them at the side through a "window" which will snap off any USB sticks accidentally left in if you open the drawer...

Are you really not going to check first? They should be sticking out of the side far enough that it’s obvious. Also, how much force do you use when opening a computer case?

 

[stevebez]

What this case really needs is a matching monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

 

[BSim500]

Are you really not going to check first? They should be sticking out of the side far enough that it’s obvious. Also, how much force do you use when opening a computer case?

It's entirely possible to miss case specific stuff like that. Virtually every other case doesn't need "front" USB stuff unplugged when removing the side / top. Devices like FLIRC's are so short and meant to be left plugged in permanently that it's very easy to forget about them when they're not in front. I guess if you like the design then go for it, but $300 for what's basically a horizontal SFX case with tray table legs but lacks the capability to be stood upright giving it a permanently huge footprint of 1,767cm2 (compared to similar SFX PSU cases like the Fractal Design Node 202 (415cm2 vert / 1251cm2 horz) or the nCase's 540cm2, or even taking up double the room of your average 750-850cm2 small M-ATX tower on the floor, doesn't sound particularly "space saving" to me...

You could stand your monitor on top (as the web site suggests), but the problem is modern 24-40" monitors are much larger than the old 14-19" CRT's we used to do that with back in the 90's, and you don't actually want to raise the height of modern large screens above default desk height without it becoming a literal pain in the neck. Sure you can stand your keyboard underneath it, but then sliding under-desk keyb + mouse trays / computer workstations have been around for like +30 years that do exactly the same thing with any case (with the ultimate in space-saving being a MATX tower that stands on the floor + a slide-out K&M tray + a wall mounted monitor that combined, takes up literally no desk space at all and still costs less than half the price of this case).

 

[stevebez]

It's entirely possible to miss case specific stuff like that. Virtually every other case doesn't need "front" USB stuff unplugged when removing the side / top. Devices like FLIRC's are so short and meant to be left plugged in permanently that it's very easy to forget about them when they're not in front. ...

So you are saying that you would stick a USB ir receiver in the SIDE of a computer clearly designed specifically for desktop use? Other non-ir “permanent” USB devices could easily be put in the USB ports in the back.

...I guess if you like the design then go for it, but $300 for what's basically a horizontal SFX case with tray table legs but lacks the capability to be stood upright giving it a permanently huge footprint of 1,767cm2 ......

We get it. It’s not for you.

Who it is for is an executive who needs a desktop computer, and doesn’t want multi-color LED case fans, plasi-chrome, et cetera. Style matters for the person who buys this, and they probably aren’t running photoshop on it.

Although I generally agree with you about the monitor height issue, I think it’s worthwhile to consider how tall a 21 inch crt was compared to a modern 23 inch display. Also, the displays on iMacs are pretty high off the desk, and I don’t see too many people complaining about it. Other iMac issues sure, but not that.