Looking straight into the case after removing the cover, this unassuming-looking little rod pokes out from the lower right corner. It may not look like much, but it's actually an ingenious lock for the front bezel. The rod is spring-loaded, and when the side panel is replaced, it pushes the rod through a hasp on the bottom of the front bezel. The end result is that the bezel can't be removed without first pulling the side panel. Pretty slick.

Assuming the side panel is off, removing the bezel is basically a grab-it-and-pull operation. As removable front bezels go, I've dealt with much, much worse.

After the front bezel comes off, it's still attached by the power connector for the blue LEDs. Thoughtfully, Antec put a small plug on both the bezel side and the interior side, making it easy to remove the bezel completely. It seems like an obvious feature, but I've dealt with more than one case where LEDs mounted in the front bezel were hardwired, meaning even after removing it, the bezel was basically tied to the front of the case.

Directly above the front fan port is the tray for the 3.5" drives. The tray is held in place by a couple of thumbscrews. Unscrew them, and the tray slides right out...

Here's a shot of the tray pulled partway out. Notice the screws on the sides of the tray. Like a Shuttle cube, the drive covers screw into place. This is vastly preferable to "snap-in" bay covers, which tend to snap out of place if accidentally bumped.

Here's the hasp of the bezel lock I talked about earlier. You can see it's at the very bottom of the bezel, below the air filter. Speaking of which, let's take a closer look.

Here's a shot of the filter installed in the bezel. Installing and removing it is a simple snap in, snap out affair. Look closely at the bottom, and you can see the outlines of the three air intake holes.

This is a close-up of the inside of one of the optical drive covers. Midway down on the left you can see the hinge for the drive door, which swings down when the drive tray slides out, then snaps back into position when the tray closes.

The two beige pieces on the bottom are attached to the silver buttons on the drive cover. These bits of plastic actually contact the optical drive's buttons. They slide back and forth on notched tracks, allowing the user to adjust them to match the button positions on a particular drive. To the right of these, you can see a small clear window. This window extends most of the way across the drive cover, allowing drive LEDs to show through so long as their position places them within the window. I looked at a variety of optical drives in preparation for this article, and all of them were "P160-friendly" in terms of their LED placement.