I have played with a few cheap steel cases from various vendors. Their major marketing point is innovative eye-candy, which this case has plenty of. It is merely a matter of personal taste if you like the touches that have been added. It is visually appealing from the outside, but not great.. It seems like the designers of this case were trying to deliver another cool-looking case, but ended up just trying too hard.
The X-window is the showpiece of this case. It is well constructed and looks very cool, especially in the photos below. Many of the visual details just do not match the theme. If the theme they were going for was “Extraterrestrial Bike-Reflector Dance Party 2003” then they achieved their goal.
Koolcases has a variety of cases varying in quality and price, so you are sure to find something to like, but I just cannot recommend this particular case. It seems the designers put extra thought into some details of the case, but left some half-done or poorly implemented. This is disappointing considering the price, as one can purchase an excellent aluminum Chieftec case for a few dollars more.
This would be a decent case if competing in the $30 category, but the extra features that justify a higher price are just poorly implemented. A $65 case should either look really good or be really good quality, but this case excels at neither. The things that are done right are of decent quality, but there are just too many things wrong to justify a $65 purchase. The Koolcases Matrix receives a 6 out of 10 for effort.
Pros
- Sleeve bearing fans
- Cool looking Pre-installed X-window
- Floppy (Zip) drive stealth mod
- Drive column extends entire case height
- Removable motherboard tray
- LED light mod
- 350 watt power supply
Cons
- No monitoring capability on fans
- Useless front audio ports
- Pointless front intake decoration
- Ugly decorative touches
