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Removing the side panels is a straighforward process and requires no special tools. Once opened, the insides of the case are finished in a very high quality black finish.
The side panels are extremely heavy and contain the LED lighting system inside. On the flip side (inside), the doors are covered with a thick plastic paper style material which is screwed into the main unit. No, we have never seen anything like this before either.
I have to say, I was not impressed with the build quality of the side doors, while I can appreciate the fact that they have layered a multicoloured plastic to brighten up the lighting when looking at it from the outside it just felt extremely flimsy. As you can see above, the power cable is glued to the panel with a nasty big blob of material. The plastic cover also moves very easily and isn't flat either, rising and dipping across the area.
The bundle includes screws, cable ties, tidies and various brackets to aid with the system build. There was unfortunately no manual or literature whatsoever, so the end user would be flying blind. Bitfenix are going to offer a downloadable manual, which is not going to be an ideal situation if this is your only PC and you are building it.
The bottom of the case has rubber stoppers for the power supply to rest upon. In front there is a 120mm filtered area to add an optional fan if you wish. This filter is removable, although for some reason you have to remove four screws from underneath the chassis. As we noted on the last page, our rear dust filter was damaged in transit and had snapped. We repaired it quickly with a little Blutak. While we were repairing the filter we noticed that one of the feet of the Colossus was also falling apart so we had to reattach it.
The front of the case houses a 230mm fan, used as an intake solution. At the top is another 230mm fan which is used in an exhaust position.
The Colossus can hold a total of five 5.25 inch devices. These have plastic locks on both sides which allow for a screw less installation of all drives. Below this are seven hard drive trays which can be removed individually and do not require any tools for fitting. Our 5.25 inch bay metal placeholders were very loose and one had almost moved 90 degrees during shipping.
There are plenty of holes and locations for storing and routing cables and we were pleased to see the almost obligatory hole for easy access to CPU backplates.
The other side of the case has a plethora of recesses for storing cables, which is just as well as there are already a multitude there.
Installing the power supply is a simple process, requiring four screws to be attached to mount into the case. Above this is a clever system of PCI card mounting similar to the Lian Li 8FIB chassis we recently reviewed, but unfortunately not metal, just plastic. It seems tough enough however.
Mounting our Corsair H70 cooler was a little tricky as BitFenix have adopted a 140mm sized slot at the rear. As we could see no 140mm to 120mm conversion bracket and had no manual for reference we managed to just bolt the H70 into some spaces within the vented area. Hardly ideal.
At this stage I had begun to lose a little faith in BitFenix. So far we have had a broken bottom filter, a loose plastic ring on one of the feet, rather flimsy designed doors and a rear mounted fan position which is best suited to an unusual 140mm size. Until CoolIT, Corsair and a plethora of other manufacturers adopt a 140mm fan size then we see no reason for BitFenix to do so either. Don't worry, there are positives, but we need to flag these issues on an early sample from a new manufacturer so that they have the chance to review their materials, designs, assembly partners, packaging and QA processes.
