AMS gMONO Midtower Case Review

This past week we received a case from Case-mod.com, called the GMono Mid Tower, which is made by AMS Electronics. This case is priced at $49.99, and here are the specs:

• 8.0″(W)x17.0″(H)x19.0″(D)
• Steel chassis built from one solid piece to lend structural support
• ATX compatible
• 1/3″ cast acrylic front bezel with chrome buttons
• High gloss automotive quality black finish
• Folded edges
• 1 80mm fan mounted in front
• 4 external 5.25″ drive bays
• 2 external 3.5″ drive bays
• 5 internal 3.5″ drive bays
• 2 front USB headers, 1 front FireWire header, 1 front microphone port, & 1 front headphone jack
• Net Weight: 23 lbs.

The unit that I received did not have a power supply unit, so I used my Antec 300w PSU for this review. First off lets check out the case itself:

Let me tell you, the first thing I noticed about this case is the paint job. It is really quite good. It has a high gloss finish which looks really nice, until you smudge it all up as you’ll see throughout this review. If you touch the paint at all it leaves marks all over it, so you’re gonna have to maintain it a little bit with some Windex. Also, the front bezel is made of 1/3″ cast acrylic plexiglass, which is also very nice looking. Again, this too smudges quite severely, but if you are going to clean acrylic don’t use any type of ammonia based cleaner like Windex because it will fog up the clear plastic, and that looks bad. But the case itself is very nice looking, very professionally done. You can see in the third picture how shiny the case is, as my camera flash reflected right off the side.

I did find one flaw in the paint job, and that was a dent on the back of the case, as you can see in the next picture. I don’t know if this happened during shipping or manufacturing, but it is kind of ugly, but then again I’m sure this is just a fluke and most if not all of the other cases will be just fine. Plus, its on the back where nobody is going to see it anyway, but I thought I would point it out anyway. Also, I apologize about the bad picture, I just got this digital camera and I’m still figuring out how the focus and stuff works so I can take better pics.

 

What I really like about this case, along with the paint job, is the chrome buttons on the front. They really go well with the clear plexiglass and the black finish, so on aesthetics alone this case is a 10. Lets check out some of the more functional features:

 

Here we see the front headers for USB, FireWire, and audio I/O. They are neatly nestled in the case, and are quite attractive. The little printed circuit board in the second picture is what the cord in the 3rd picture connects to. It’s a nice tidy package, with not too many loose wires to fiddle around with. The cable is wrapped around a magnet, which I assume is to get rid of any kind of interference and make the signal clearer, but I could be wrong on that one.

Okay, lets get inside this baby and install some components and see how she holds up.

Before we start, I would like to say that this case isn’t very large, in fact its pretty tiny. So if you plan on installing some huge dually motherboards or something in it I think you may run into problems. Now that that’s said, lets see the inside:

As you can see from the picture above, this case does not have removable, well anything. No removable motherboard tray, no removable hard drive bays, nothing. It does have a removable power supply mounting bracket, but I have some qualms with that as you will see later on. The picture on the right is just another pic I had lying around, it just shows the bag of screws and the two thumbscrews that come with the case. Why they only included 2 thumbscrews is beyond me, they should have included at least 4. Why did I not say six? Because the top of the case is riveted to the body, and cannot be removed. This is really troubling to me as a case modding enthusiast, as it makes it difficult to mod this case without taking all the parts out beforehand. It also makes it pretty difficult to get the power supply unit into the case.

Here we can see the fan that comes with the case, which is mounted in the front, where most case manufacturers put their fans. I have a bit of a problem with this. I have no problem with the fan itself, which is fine, but the fact that the fan cannot really bring in much air since the front of the case is made of acrylic, with only a few holes drilled into it for circulation. If you’re gonna use this case, you’re probably gonna have to cut a duct into the front to get sufficient airflow to make a difference.

Okay, the first thing I did when installing components into the case was install the power supply. To do this, I removed the power supply mounting bracket, and attempted to attach it to my Antec 300w power supply unit. To my surprise, it didn’t fit! At all! I tried jimmy rigging it to fit in there, but part of the metal was touching the receptacle for the power cable. Here you can see what I mean:

I had to take a pair of dykes (wire cutters) and make a minor modification so that the PSU would fit. This really should be fixed, and although it is a really minor task to fix, it shouldn’t need to be fixed in the first place. I don’t know how it fits regarding other power supplies, so I can’t really comment on that. Here is a picture of the fixed PSU plate:

Other than the few flaws that I have pointed out already, this case is surprisingly easy to work with. The motherboard fit correctly the first time, and the way they designed the hard drive cages and stuff makes it really easy to hide your wires and cables. It also has 4 full 5.25″ drive bays, which allow for maximum expansion capabilities without purchasing a full tower case.

One other issue I have with this case, although quite minor, is with the I/O backpanel. You can take a look at it here:

While I was trying to punch out the sound input/output holes for the motherboard’s onboard sound, it popped out of the case. It was very, very cheaply made and flimsy, and I had a hard time trying to get it back in as well. I know that its minor, but I want to inform everybody about everything before they drop 50 bucks.

Here are some pics of the computer all put together, notice how tidy it is inside:

And here are some pictures of the computer up and running. My camera, like Brandon’s, doesn’t like to take pictures of light sources, but let me assure you that the blue LED just looks great, and the acrylic bezel spreads the light out so it 0wns even more.

I have to leave you guys with a word of caution if you do purchase this case: Make sure that the screws on the front bezel are not too tight, and always handle with care, because the acrylic on the front is easily cracked or broken. Just use commmon sense when handling and you should be fine.

Conclusion

When we got this case in to the ‘shop, I kinda blew it off as just another one of those no name cases. But once I opened the box I was really amazed at the aesthetics that this case has to offer. It looks really good, is small enough for anyone to use practically anywhere, but has enough expansion capabilities to hold any super-computer. Apart from the few minor flaws described before, this case is really good, and the features than make up for any shortcomings. However, there still are flaws, and hopefully the manufacturer will address them for a future release and help this case really shine. I give this case 7/10. I would like to thank Case-Mod.com for sending this case out for the ‘shop to review.

Pros

• Beautiful automotive quality finish
• Good aesthetics all around
• Adequate expansion capabilities
• Blue LED :) and plexiglass bezel

Cons

• PSU bracket doesn’t fit all PSUs correcty
• Cheap I/O plate
• Paint accumulates finger prints too easily
• Acrylic front panel easily cracked
• Ours came dented :(