Colorcases CyberMirror Chassis Review

Author : Joseph JaramilloDate : 2nd August 2001

3DVelocity would like to thank Colorcases for providing this case for review.

The First Impressions:

First of all, I'd like to take this opportunity to again thank Colorcases for providing this case for review. The original unit arrived poorly handled by UPS, with a cracked front bezel and dents all over the poor thing. A simple phone call to Matt, the President of Colorcases, resolved the issue. Within a week we had another case for review, this time in pristine order. As a side note of first impression, Colorcases is a company we are happy in recommending.

Now, onto the case: Shiny! The Colorcases CyberMirror ATX case is aptly named. Down the entire front of the case is a convex curve that has a metallic, shiny appearance to it. It does, in fact, act as a sort of mirror. Each drive bay is covered by a metallic piece that is removable with a push in and pull mechanism that feels remarkable like the same button reaction found on push-button ball-point pens. These covers are re-attachable in the same form.

Moving further down we come to the floppy drive/power button section of the unit. On the left side you see the unit as it stands normally. There is a translucent piece of plastic with a finger inlet so that it can be moved up, revealing the power button, reset button (a tiny piece of plastic highlighted in red), and the power and IDE access lights.

And finally we reach the bottom, where Colorcases has stashed another full-size external drive bay, making a grand total of four.

Removing the front bezel, we are greeted with a fairly normal chassis. The top drive bay is open, while the rest of the full-size bays have your normal breakaway pieces. Of interest to the overclocker are the 80mm fan slots. Personally, I would have preferred a single, larger opening, because the way the front bezel fits on relatively little air is allowed to actually be brought in, at the expense of that lower slot.

The Back :

Nothing special is to be found rearward. The case comes with the PSU pre-installed. There is an 80mm fan port with one fan included. Colorcases includes several faceplates for the connectors on your motherboard, and you can faintly see to the right of that slot breakout locations for miscellaneous proprietary ports you may have. One caveat of interest here is first the size of the fan slot, and the lack of any other good ventilation. The small vents above the cards do relatively nothing for cooling, as even small fans do not fit there.

The side panels on the CyberMirror attach with standard thumbscrews. The panels themselves have vents on them, which could actually be easily modified to include fans.

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