Box and Bundle

The case arrived in a rather large cardboard box. The box didn’t appear to be too strong as where there were no polystyrene pads; i.e. the middle of the box simply crumpled inwards towards the case. This may be because the delivery men are a bit rough with anything that says handle with care on it or because the cardboard is too thin. I for one wouldn’t want anything I have purchased to arrive in bad condition because the packaging wasn’t sufficient.

The front of the box features a large picture of the GS1000 at an angle with several arrows indicating the cases numerous features. The packaging does look very well designed and professional. Sadly the box has the photo of the black model only when the model I have for review is the titanium model; nothing too big but could be a little misleading. The rear of the packaging was exactly the same as the front but the sides cover the rest of the features and the specs. I was also pleased to find a picture of the titanium model on one of the sides, but why this wasn’t present in a larger form I don’t know.

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Once I had removed the case from the packaging I took a good look at it for any signs of damage ect. I didn’t find any, but it did help to serve as a quality assurance check. I found a few problems with the case within a very short space of time; firstly the way the parts of the case fit together are frankly an embarrassment to Zalman, the top panel and the front panel aren’t aligned with each other correctly meaning it not only looks bad when the side panel meets in the disjointed corner but the side panel begins to scratch at the inside of the plastic.

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Secondly the “hydraulic geared cover,” which is indicated on the packaging by the arrows, doesn’t feel geared or hydraulic at all, infact it is stiff and rubs on the surrounding plastic. It also produces a loud scraping noise when opened or closed which is incredibly annoying.

NB. After removing the top panel to install the silent fan on the top I found the reason for the top door not feeling as though it was not hydraulic and for it rubbing. The hydraulic system was not connected to the case properly therefore the door was at an odd angle and the hydraulics had no mounting to get any kind of leverage to assist in the opening of the door.

Also the top cover that disguises the fan vents on the top was lifting up. Although this could be solved by simply pushing the panel down until it clipped into place it doesn’t really help to give much confidence in the quality of the case.

After that slight detour from Box ‘n’ bundle to the case itself its time to look at what you get along with it. Inside the case I was surprised to find a large box labelled GS1000 accessory box. Hoping to open it up and find some nice extras like stickers and other such freebies I was rather let down when I found that the accessories were no more that the case feet, screws standoffs ect and the users manual; practical, but not too exciting.

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