ColorCases 'X-Bee' ATX PC Case

Author : Shawn Sparks Date : 7th October 2002

...Product	'X-Bee' ATX Case
...Manufacturer	ColorCases
...Supplier	ColorCases
...Price	$35.00

 

 

 

The slight recess of the motherboard tray doesn't seem to affect the installation of the AGP card, thank god (or whoever I am supposed to thank in situations like this), and the sound card is the same, although when I went to secure them, I discovered that the screw mounts were not threaded; Luckily the coarse thread screws I have are hearty enough to cut their own damn threads, so this was more of a letdown than a problem.

All that's left is to wire the side fan, and boot up…

The slotted grille for the side fan makes a lot of noise; the turbulent air passing through the slots makes far too much racket for my taste. I will be trimming these out and mounting a wire grille. However, they do allow fairly unrestricted airflow, so if a little noise isn't an issue to you they are very functional.

Voila! There she is in all her glory, fully assembled and ready to go.

I must mention that after working with this case for a few days, having the power and reset switches right next to the CD drive eject button is not a good idea, I will be moving the drive down a bay to avoid shutting down when I go to eject the CD.

Also the space for the VGA cable to mate with the VGA card is slightly too narrow, and there is a lip of metal in the way, making the connection there questionable depending on your VGA cable.

And finally, a slight bump was all it took to knock one of the chrome plastic details off the face. Really… I went to move the case, my hand slipped and I was holding this… Oh well, nothing that a touch of glue won't fix.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about the X-Bee. I love the design; it is a fabulous looking case. It appears aggressive, classy and alternative all at the same time. The bonus features of thumbscrews and tool less drive bays make working with the case that much easier, however, the lack of a removable motherboard tray was a slight disappointment in this respect. The slightly recessed motherboard also knocks some points away from perfect , having the USB, COM and Printer ports recessed can possibly have some very negative consequences. The construction of this case feels moderate in quality, this isn't the strongest case I have worked with, yet the metal is just thick enough to withstand installing and removing components without bending easily. ColorCases has the right idea; bring cool modified cases to those that are not adventurous enough to jump in and do it themselves, and for a reasonable price. But for those that are going to be swapping motherboards, CPUs, and lugging your machine to LAN parties, you might look into one of their modified Antec cases, they cost a bit more, but I think the quality and attention to detail is worth it.

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