Introduction
True case modders keep an eye open for that extra bling bling. You know what I mean, something like LED lighting tricks, new bay devices, and things of this nature. Ive been looking for a company to make a custom laser-etched window in a size that I wanted, with a picture that I supplied. A few weeks ago I placed an order with Hyperkore (www.hyperkore.com) because I found they offer a series of laser-etched and custom laser-etched windows. Hyperkore offers three types of laser-etched windows, the standard one (clear), the Blackout Series v.1 (translucent), and the Blackout Series v.2 (opaque). More on these later.
I had not heard of Hyperkore before stumbling upon their web site in a Google search. After I did some investigating, I learned that they are known for making extreme gaming machines, and there are numerous awards for the performance levels they have achieved. If you look around their site though, youll soon notice the laser-etched windows both custom and pre-made windows can be had in several shapes.
My order arrived in about one week. Hyperkore was off to a good start in my book!
Packaging, Contents, and Other Stuff
I carefully opened the nicely wrapped package that arrived safely at my home. In figure 1, you can see the package, and in figure 2, you can see how my custom laser-etched windows were nicely wrapped. Each window was wrapped in several layers of cellophane, and nothing was chipped or scratched. I ordered two custom laser-etched windows, at a cost of just over $110. We are talking between $50 and $55 per window here (this includes shipping however), and in a few minutes you will see that you get what you pay for.
Figure 1 click to see the big picture
Figure 2 click to see the big picture
You must be curious to see my second window, since you can see the first one above in figure 2. By the way, this AMD logo was downloaded from the AMD web site, and by the time you finish this review, you shall see how I used it. The second custom laser-etched window is my own creation the Big Als Computers logo. You can see it in figure 3. This is the first time Ive tried to put this logo onto a laser-etched window, and I do believe it turned out great. The guy I was dealing with at Hyperkore (Thomas) said that he did a test etching first, and then talked about rasterizing the image. This is why some custom laser-etchings take more time to complete, and also why they arent going to be cheap. I wasnt sure why this was needed, so I did some more searching on Google:
Rasterize: To prepare a page for display or printing. Rasterization is performed by a raster image processor (RIP), which turns text and images into the matrix of pixels (bitmap) that will be displayed on screen or printed on the page. Various conversions may take place. For example, the mathematical coordinates of vector and outline fonts as well as vector drawings must be converted into bitmaps. Existing bitmaps may have to be scaled into different-sized bitmaps.
Unless output is printed on a vector graphics plotter, which literally draws the illustration with pens, all text and graphics must be rasterized into a bitmap for display or printing.
Now we understand what he was saying, but the real proof comes when we install these bad boys. Since Hyperkore knew I was going to review these windows, they threw in a bonus of sorts a small Blackout Series v.2 black and white photograph-like window. You can see this in figure 4. You can see that light wont pass through this laser-etched window.
Figure 3 click to see the big picture
Figure 4 click to see the big picture