Good case but front panel and visuals are an afterthought

I went for this case because it had a built in power supply (500W), plenty of space and the fans (4 fans!) were included. It is also a tool free installation case, with motherboard panel that is detachable so it opens from both sides.

Install of motherboard (ATX) and floppy, CD-RW drive and hard drive was a breeze - Raidmax have provided a very clever locking technology where no screws are needed. All the extra parts of the case are also fit inside a blue box which fits snugly at the bottom of the case so it goes anywhere the case goes - a nice touch there!

Now - I could forego the last feature if the guys at Raidmax have gone a little easier on the eyes with the look of this case. This is not in my pretties case category. It looks to me like Darth Vader and Robocop had an offspring.

It looks interesting for the first month but the glow in the dark blue fans started getting annoying after the first month or so. The look is not classy, this thing has as much neon blues as a low rider's El Camino.

The fans are also not the quietest. I built this for an audio recording / post production machine and the case can definitely be hear and needs to be isolated and noiseproofed further. For everyday applications it is still a little bit too noisy compared to some other models. Taking out the side fans definitely improved the noise blueprint but at this point I can afford to keep the case isolated and out of the way of the recording/monitoring environment so no biggie. For this money I still think that the noise and quality of fans should've been addressed better.

My other gripe with this case is the installation and placement of the USB extension plugs in the front. The case has a swivel panel that opens when you want to access a floppy, CD, DVD drive in the front. In order to hook up USB and your audio inputs this door needs to stay open. This is a ridiculous omissions in the design, one that is a constant drag. Imagine having to keep the door open when your headphones or external USB drives are connected in the front - you can easily kick the front swivel panel and with these connections in use the front panel just won't stay shut. The front is also missing the firewire connection extender and in my case that would've been very handy since my audio card is actually connected via firewire (Presonus Firepod). Again - with the swivel door the front is not very useful so no huge regrets. I might even take some pliers and remove the swivel panel for good.

The power supply has behaved rather well for my system (DFI Infinity Mobo, AMD A2 processor) and I've been happy with the case's performance so far. If it weren't for the front panel door hiding the connections and the overabundance of lights I'd have been very happy.