Zalman's Upcoming Z11 Neo Case Priced Right

[N.Broekhuijsen]

Zalman has a new case coming up, and actually looks quite promising. Especially the price tag.

Zalman's Upcoming Z11 Neo Case Priced Right : Read more

 

[vagrantsoul]

Still think that the Enthoo Pro is worth any premium vs this, especially if the zalman goes up towards the 90 price point.

 

[Marcus Lewis]

Looks 10000x better without the blue: http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/Neo-Mid-Tower-Case-from-Zalman-Has-Detachable-HDD-Cage-463307-2.jpg

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I agree Enthoo Pro , best deal on the market.

 

[nnila]

Without the blue looks absolutely awesome

 

[eklipz330]

without blue looks awesome. enthoo pro is full tower, not mid tower.

 

[eklipz330]

without blue looks awesome. enthoo pro is full tower, not mid tower.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Enthoo Pro is in between a FULL and Mid.

 

[synphul]

I have to agree with most, enthoo pro is still quite a bit better for that price range. I suppose the styling might appeal to different tastes. Not sure why they would use 80mm fans since they're known to be either weak, noisier than necessary or both. Not to mention my current setup uses at least 2 5.25 bays. A case this size, there's no reason not to. "Well most people don't use them now" isn't an excuse for a reduction of features. That's the beauty of 5.25 bays, if they're included people who need them will use them. Those who don't, won't.

It would be a different story of leaving these out allowed cases to be more compact in a case supporting up to full atx but instead they make them even larger than they need to with bulky covers and unneeded feet. Reminds me of m$ cutting functionality and trying to pass it off as a 'feature'.

 

[buzznut]

Thought I heard a month or so ago that Zalman was filing for bankruptcy...

 

[synphul]

I heard something about that as well, but I think it was their parent company and they weren't really affected by it.

 

[sesam]

Recent year have been disappointing for case designs, at least for my taste. Tacky looking leds, windows and overly designed exteriors. Zalman is not the worst offender by far, and this case looks decent. But they used to make awesome looking high quality cases like the Zalman TNN500AF.

I have been mostly using Lian-Li cases ever since they released the first aluminium PC case. Now almost two decades later I'm still using their cases, because other manufacturers just don't appear to get it. I have made a few ventures with Coolermaster and Silverstone, but in the end always returned to Lian-Li. I just want good build quality and a classic timeless looking exteriors. The only manufacturer that in my opinion delivers for a semi-affordable price. Unless you count "custom" manufacturers like CaseLabs, but they are pricey even for high-end builds.

 

[EdBakersfield]

I want cases to be flat on top. This facilitates my system of positive pressure by installing two or three 120mm or 140mm intake fans across the flat top with a filter above. These also bring a good blast of air past the VRMs. Additionally, any ports or buttons on top draw debris and dust. Count me out of this case.

 

[Christopher1]

Who needs a reset button on a PC anymore? Or is this meant to clear the motherboard BIOS and go back to default settings without having to open up the case?

 

[synphul]

I don't use the reset much, but it's nice to have if/when needed (say a system locks up). Why reduce features and keep the price the same? It's like a floppy, I haven't used floppies much in years and definitely not for storage like they were intended. But if you have to do any low level work I think a floppy is still the best way to go. Fdd access was much more bullet proof than hoping usb still works when things go south. Same thing with cases that eliminate all external bays entirely. No cd/dvd means no burning of cd's (music) or dvd's (movies) which both still prevail in home and auto (cd/dvd formats) entertainment. It also means instead of loading default software or drivers I'd have to download everything and not every area (mine included) has true broadband internet like dsl or cable. Overall in just the u.s. alone, most areas don't. That's very limiting. It doesn't hurt anything to include standard features and yet the newer cases will eliminate them and keep charging the same prices.

Who wants to go buy a car without power windows and locks or cruise control and pay the same price for it, just because the manufacturer decided no one uses it anymore. If a car is lacking options once available, I'm going to expect a lower sticker price and the same applies to cases.

The same applies to motherboards, they're doing away with ps/2 in favor of usb. Usb is far from superior for keyboards, it struggles to compete with ps/2's native n key rollover and when first booting a system myself and others have had much more issue getting usb peripherals to work on a newly built machine. Ps/2 never had that problem and actually helped with a newly built system using a z97 mobo. When I couldn't use the keyboard or mouse plugged into any of the usb ports upon first boot (prior to drivers being loaded) in order to navigate the bios I ended up using the legacy ps/2 port and it worked like a charm. I would have been in a bad position without the option and even if I don't use it for the next 2yrs, that port hardly takes up any space on the io panel. It's nice to have when you need it.

 

[vagrantsoul]

I've also switched the power/reset buttons on the mobos in some cases because of cat paws, reset seems to be much harder to hit in some cases, preventing random power ups, or if you're lazy and forget to alter the properties of what the power button does when pressed in windows.