Introduction

Mini ITX based cases are rare and scarcer still are a product that uses the former standard but has a look of quality too.  This form factor is becoming a vast standard for not only Home Theatre-based solutions, but one for serious web surfing and even gaming. The reason for this is that one could simply hide the chassis in a cupboard so that to keep the home decor looking constant, instead of having a great big black box in the living room/bedroom. So given this information and convenience Mini ITX is starting to become the factor of choice for style-savvy home users.

However most of the Mini ITX format chassis are made out of a polymer-based material or that of steel in order to keep the costs down, with the prices usually being around the £40 mark. However what would really revolutionise this outmoded way of thinking would be a full Aluminium base case that would retail for around the same price as the aforementioned polymer and steel versions.

One company that loudly proclaims that they have the answer, would be Raijintek.

Company Background

About us:

• With the aim of designing high-end products for Lifestyle , Computer and Day-to-Day usage, RAIJINTEK was established in 2013 to accomplishes the future of IT and Lifestyle products.
• This task and aim lead us grow and toward a global brand. Not only highly recommended IT products but we also provide Gaming Gear such as Chassis, PSU’s and Lifestyle products for Smartphones and all your tablet PC’s.
• Fully dedicated to develop best Products for global users, RAIJINTEK’s R&D team never forget the aim to provide a friendly and performing product . Decades experience in industry, RAIJINTEK management would never give up service and product quality to value customers.

(http://www.raijintek.com/en/raijintek_about-us.php last accessed 18/12/2014)

Specifications.

Upon glancing over the specifications of the product we see the usual fare associated the chassis of this type, but hang on a moment as yes we did see it a FULL aluminium case

is featured and with an acrylic window too. However I recon it will be worth a great deal more than £40 that other manufacturers are charging for their products.

Upon searching around the internet to see if this product is for sale ,we find the Raijintek Metis for just £39.95, which includes an acrylic window at OCUK

Click below for a direct link

So given that we have a mini ITX  case with an acrylic window and aluminium at that we cannot help and be a little jaded thinking that quality must somehow be compromised, so without further ado let us investigate further.

 Packaging

The box has an overall generic theme, with the case generally outlined on all sides of the packaging.  The outer carton is hardly a work of art, but then again due to the price range of these cases it does not need to be.

The inner packaging is as standard in chassis manufacturers world wide with the two outer foam pieces in order the protect the chassis from damage and the usual bag to prevent dust and scratches.

Well that is it folks, the shortest packaging section ever, however who wishes to read about this right? One would simply breeze onto the case review section.

Raijintek Metis Chassis Exterior

Upon first unpacking the Metis case, we noticed a lovely and yet subtle gold colouring of the product. Rather than choosing a ‘CHAV’ bling-type gold they have rather elected for a more muted form of the same. One could describe this as an ‘Antique Gold’ and as such is good indicator of what can be expected.

As one can see this is mini ITX chassis that does not accommodate any form of optical bay, which is just as well as any optical drives are slowly becoming defunct.

The overall graceful and subtle curves of the case are a nice touch and how everything just fits together with virtually no seems.

Let us work around the case and render our opinion on this chassis.

Before we go any further we would love to further compliment the colouring of the Metis chassis as we have noticed the gold reacts under differently under a myriad of conditions. For example during the photography of this case we played around with the lighting and noticed the wonderful effects reflected on to the case. For example; we noticed the almost sun-set gold in some conditions and a more harsher hue of the same in others.

We appreciate the minimalist and graceful design of the overall feel of the case and this is reflected most in the front panel. Lacking an absence of gimmicks or LED foolishness the front panel has a clean look. The power on also feels simple and yet solid and seems comfortable to touch when depressed.

The Input and Output panel is based along a similar vein with the USB PORTS being of USB 3.0 only and to keep these to a minimum only two external USB ports are available. As usual we have connections for head and microphone use.

Moving on to the side panel we encounter large (for a chassis this size) acrylic window, covered in the brown anti-scratch sticky paper.

What is noticeable about the above and unlike other chassis the acrylic window itself has been fastened onto the exterior of the chassis panel and not the interior. One can only deduce that this is to maximise space for the interior. Though we do understand this solution it does however spoil the graceful looks of the side panel a little.

The rear of the metis is pretty much standard faire with the 120mm exhaust fan and the two PCIE slots, which allow any consumer to turn this into a serious gaming machine by the way of the gtx970 M-ITX edition offered by Asus and Gigabyte.

We would have preferred if the rear panel was the same colour of the case, but one cannot have everything.

The other side panel and given this one lacks an acrylic window follows the graceful curves of the chassis and sports small grill to allow ventilation.

Again we are amazed on how the anodised and brushed aluminium reacts to differing light conditions.

We note that both of the side panels are held in place by the use of ‘M2′ flat head screws and the holes themselves are countersunk to help lend to the swan-like gracefulness of the Metis chassis.

Lastly we move to the bottom panel of the case and notice many rubber grommets place there. The latter mentioned are the mounting holes needed to place a hard or solid state drive.

Also we can see on how the power supply unit is mounted within this product. Rather than the usual solution of mounting the power supply unit at the rear panel, Raijintek has used the lower panel solution in order to reduce the length of the case.  Whilst this is an effective solution, it could have its drawbacks by the high of the PSU and its trailing wires.  However we must have an internal look to view this.

With baited breath we hope that the quality of the exterior is brought about on the interior.

Metis Interior

Remember the ‘M2′ sized screws that we mentioned earlier?  Unscrewing these will help to remove the side panel, so why don’t we do that in the first instance and take a look shall we?

The first thing we notice is that the the lovely anodised gold continues here, the brushed effect does not.

Examining the panel closer we can see some marks or scratches that can only have been made at the manufacturing rather than transportation stage.  We can guess this as the marks are covered with the anodising effect and not the silver of the bare aluminium, then one can only deduce that this is a quality control process and at some stage of the manufacture these marks are being introduced.

Two make things fair we purchased a second gold case and a blue model and both had similar (but not the same) marks.

As shown in the first image below we can see internal ‘scratch’ marks on the other panel from the inside and indeed we shall take a look at this later.

Motherboard mounting seems straight forward and so does the hard and solid state drive fixings.  As mentioned early the power supply unit is mounted vertically and as such there has to be an internal PSU lead which stretches from the usual socket at the rear and then traces back to the power unit on the lower panel.

The grill on the other side (second side panel) of the case shows that is optimally placed below the CPU socket on the motherboard in order to allow cooler air to enter the underside of the motherboard.

As we can see from above the second panel is not exempt from scratches either and indeed does spoil the overall good feeling we have of this chassis.

Lastly we finish up this section with some random gratuitous shots of the chassis.

Normally at this stage we would like to do a full system build in order to really try the product and see how everything fits together. However at the time of writing we did not have a mini ITX board available and so this time we have had to do without.

Anyway let us move on to the conclusion.

Conclusion

The Raijintek Metis is really a wonderful case overall and the minimalist look to the chassis only seeks to further further appeal. The graceful lines and the gold texture add to the almost ‘Steampunk effect’ and that we can see many people doing the aforementioned modifications to this chassis to further enhance the aforementioned. The all exterior paneled aluminium also lends feeling of quality and including that of the brushed effects.

The acrylic window also helps in this matter as where else can one purchase an all aluminium chassis with an acrylic window for this price?

The way the solid state drives and indeed the power supply units are mounted is a nice touch of genius and deserves a mention here also.

However not everything is good as we can see from the internal scratch marks. This is most certainly a manufacturing issue and needs to be addressed.

In all fairness since first receiving this case the manufacturer has addressed the issue about the internal marks and stock should be available without this problem/

• Pros:
• Fantastic gold colour (changes shade to differing light effects)
• Graceful lines
• Lovely acrylic Window
• PSU mounting
• All panels are aluminium
• small even for a M-ITX case
• able to install great graphics cards
• PRICE PRICE PRICE

Cons:

• Internal scratches

We would have liked to give a gold award for the Raijntek Metis, however the internal scratches put us off a bit.  Though we have stressed that this case is a sheer work of beauty marred by only a small flaw and therefore achieves a 8.8 out of ten and therefore a Silver award. We like to thank OCUK for this sample: Raijintek Metis for just £39.95, which includes an acrylic window at OCUK Click below for a direct link

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