Aspire X-Navigator: A High End Gaming Chassis
by Purav Sanghani on October 26, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
External Design
At the heart of the X-Navigator's visual design are the interchangeable bezel "masks", which come in 6 different colors: black, silver, blue, green, yellow, and red. Each case comes with a total of 3 different colors, the combinations of which can be found on Aspire's website.
Click to enlarge.
Click to enlarge.
The top half of the bezel features a door that swings open to the left, and when opened, it reveals the four 5-1/4" drive bays, the two exposed 3-1/2" drive bays as well as the power and reset buttons. The power button is large at about 3/4" while the reset button is extremely small, about 1/4". For large fingers, a toothpick may be required to reset the system.
Click to enlarge.
The door itself has a key lock, which seems like an excellent feature. When we took a look at the locking mechanism on the backside, though, we noticed it was made of plastic, which could easily be broken with some force. Using metal would have definitely improved this design.
Click to enlarge.
When the system is powered on, the corners of the front bezel light up with a bright blue color by four blue LEDs behind the semi-clear plastic moldings. They are extremely bright and do seem to get annoying if the case is on a table at eye level. The HDD activity light is at about mid-height towards the right side. When the door is opened, the HDD activity LED is aligned vertically with the power and reset buttons.
Click to enlarge.
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LoneWolf15 - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
Looks like an ugly attempt at a premodded case for me. The fan grills are gaudy, and I can't stand front case doors, especially plastic ones. Too much built-in lighting makes this case more blingy than it is useful, and the interchangeable front plastics are all ugly. Give me multiple low-noise 120mm fans over the cooling setup here any day as well. I also don't like clear power supplies; they look good for about two months until dust gets in them, and then they're nasty. To clean them, you'll probably end up voiding the warranty.Thresher - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
That case is fugly.I like the feature set, but I can't stand the "bling" on it. I wish more case manufacturers took Antec's lead and built more cases like the Sonata and Aria.
Entropy531 - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
#9 - They use it so they can get impartial results. If you're comparing apples to oranges, the results aren't very legitimate. They have to use all the same components to get thermal benchmarks. #5 and #10 - I agree.diehlr - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
ugly.shabby - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
Why dont you guys use the psu's that come with the case for testing, you switched to the ocz psu again.Aquila76 - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
#7 - The other HDD bays do have space for a cooling fan, it just isn't included (greenish bracket):http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/cases/aspire/x...
The top 3 are really meant for the External 3.5" drives, so even the bracket isn't included on that one, but you can get a universal one pretty easily if you need it.
MustISO - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
One thing I just can't understand is why there are three, 3 1/2 drive cages and only one of them has a fan. What the hell are they thinking?"Gee, maybe the users only want to cool 3 hard drives, the others can fry!"
Antec does the same thing.
At the very least add 2 additional fan brackets and let the user decide. That should increase the total cost by $2.
Beenthere - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
I definitely wouldn't bring this case home... but different strokes for different folks.skunkbuster - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
i actually think it looks pretty fugly + gaudyLocut0s - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
Scratch that sorry it's much clearer on a 2nd read. If any admin is watching you can delete the past 3 posts by me.