External Appearances
Surf’s Up!
Here we are greeted with the Cooler Master Wave Master. The external design of the case is outstanding. The front and sides are brushed aluminium offering a sleek and stylish appearance. This is the first time we’ve seen a “wavy” designed case from Cooler Master, taking another small step away from the standard box shape that computer cases have always been. The sleek design of the case would look good on any modern computer desk.
As you can see the front of the Wave Master is quite unusual compared
to previous designs. The drive bays are covered by an aluminium door.
I’ve taken the time and asked a few people how they feel about computer
cases with doors. It seems the result is similar to how everyone feels
about marmite! They either love it or hate it. In my opinion I’ve
always liked computer cases with doors as they hide all the drives giving
a clean, sharp external appearance. Since using the Wave Master for a
few days my opinion has changed, the door has started to annoy me. I tend
to sit with the door open all the time, completely neglecting the point
of having a door on the case. The door is held shut by a small magnetic
catch. With some cheaper alternative cases with doors the hinges seem
fragile and often break. The door on the Wave Master, feels very sturdy
and well designed. Behind the door there are 4 x 5¼ inch drive
bays. In the past Cooler Master always left out 1 drive blank assuming
the user is planning on putting a CD drive in this space. The new Wave
Master comes with all 4 drive blanks in place.
We usually expect to see a row of front expansion ports on the front of the case. On previous models these have been hidden behind a small spring loaded flap. The new Wave Master case has the ports mounted on the top of the case. These ports are in the same place where an 80mm exhaust fan is sometimes located on previous models. This leads me to believe that the Wave Master is just another standard Cooler Master case, with slight design and cosmetic tweaks. This doesn’t make it a bad case though since their wasn’t any problem with the previous Cooler Master models. “Why change something if there isn’t anything wrong with it in the first place.”
The aluminium cover hiding the expansion ports is spring loaded. You simply push down on the cover and it springs open. This reveals 2 x USB 2.0 ports, 1 x firewire (IEEE 1394), 1 x microphone input and 1 x headphone output. These expansion ports make it extremely usable for users who frequently use devices such as a digital camera and other portable devices. Having easy access expansion ports means you don’t need to disturb the cabling around the back of the PC to install the necessary cable for your portable device. The question which springs to my mind though, is why are the ports on the top of the computer case? To be honest, I don’t really know. On my desk the expansion ports are more suitable for me, to be mounted in the front of the case, but I suppose some users may prefer them to be located on the top.
