We reviewed our first product from Genesis the other day, their Xenon 770 hybrid gaming mouse. And for a manufacturer looking to break into the UK scene, we were pretty impressed. Today we have the Irid 400 RGB PC Case from Genesis, and it’s another first for us. Yep, our first-ever PC Case review.
Build Quality & Design – 4.5/5
Carefully opening the box and taking out the Irid 400 RGB I sat it on my table and just looked at it in awe. It truly was a thing of beauty. So sleek, so shiny, and so much better than the stock case I bought my budget PC with.
To the left side, you have a tempered glass screen that screws in place, allowing you to see the full glory of what you have going on inside. To the right and from behind, it’s pretty much a solid metal plate, except for the sections for your PSU, motherboard and GPU to poke out of the back. Beneath are four chrome feet, which allows air to flow under rather than it sitting hard on the floor, and on top, you have a USB hub with headphone sockets etc. the on/off switch and a button to control the RGB lighting.
Then you have the front, with a tempered glass plate that doesn’t quite cover the whole panel as there is an RGB strip running down its left-hand side, kind of tucked away in a 3D effect that makes the case seem to pop! The glass itself has a prison cell effect on it, in that there are black lines that run down the face. From behind that, you can see the RGB fans light up in all their glory, as well as small solid black sections at the top and bottom, which sports a the Genesis logo.
Inside, there is a lot of space for a pretty fancy build, including space for liquid cooling. In fact, with what I’m packing, which I won’t share through embarrassment, it almost looks as if there was too much space because I take up so little. There has been some serious thought gone into this to make sure you have ample room for everything. The only thing it lacks really is where the slots for the wires go, it’s all-metal edges. Which with my wires being old and frayed, caught on. Some nice rubber coated surrounds to help hold them in place and protect the wires would’ve been nice.
Ease of Setup – 3.5/5
Now, I’ve never built a full PC from scratch before. I’ve moved parts around, swapped over my HDD and a few other things, but never built a full PC. I knew where everything would go, and took pictures to make sure I wired it back up correctly. But still, I thought I’d check the instructions just to be on the safe side. Pointless.
I know Genesis is not an English company, but since I know they have sold products in the US, I thought maybe they’d have some basic easy-to-follow instructions for the Irid 400 RGB. Wrong! Half of them were pointless because it talks about fan installation, but they put them in for you already. Then it mentions the HDD installation, again, I ended up ignoring what I was told because it made little sense and did it myself which worked out much better.
The pain and suffering didn’t end there. Because I was given so many extra screws and bits, I wasn’t sure what was what because they were so similar. Even trying to compare them by pictures, they looked almost identical and nothing had the right numbers. Luckily, I had my own screws which still worked and I could compare to the new ones to replace if needed. Still, it was a right pain. I should’ve just gone ahead and ignored the instructions from the start. I’d have saved time and lost less hair through stress.
Functionality – 4.5/5
Once everything was screwed in, we were pretty much good to go. And in fairness, everything worked perfectly as soon as I powered it on. The fans were spinning, the RGB lighting was in full effect. It was great. I just sat there looking at it. Half angry it took so long to build when I should’ve went with my gut. Half proud, like a father looking down on his newborn baby.
There was a button on top, that allowed me to cycle through all the RGB settings. There were so many but I went with the generic standard light which just has the rainbow colour effect spinning round and round. Except when Liverpool are playing on the TV in the background and everything goes red in support, and my 6ft cardboard cutout of Sadio Mane comes out.
I suppose the only downside to the Irid 400 RGB was as I mentioned above, internally, when it came to wiring. Whilst I found enough space and zip ties were provided to tie wires together because they were old, they got caught and the nylon braid around them ripped more. It’s all still fine, but I’ve seen much cheaper cases put rubber covers around the holes designed for this, that not only prevent cables catching, but also hold them in place better too.
Value for Money – 3/5
If you read over our Xenon 770 review, you’ll have remembered that Genesis products in the UK are limited to what can be found on the official website. That said, we did find the Irid 400 RGB PC Case on both Amazon and eBay, which was a bigger success than our search for their hybrid gaming mouse. Still, we thought it worthwhile to do a little comparison again to prices abroad where this product is more widely available.
To set the scene, in the UK we found the case on eBay for £84.60, not including £13.00 for shipping (it comes directly from Poland). On Amazon, it was £93.11, with Prime next day delivery. Now compare that to some other European sites; we found it available for £69.68 in Romania, and £60.13 in Poland. So even if you paid the delivery that eBay charges it still works out cheaper than either of the two UK retailers. To us, that’s not great.
It may well come down in price as more places begin to stock these products in the UK, but as of now, it is a little steep. Especially considering you can get similar cases with the tempered glass side and RGB fans for cheaper than it is currently in the UK. Don’t get me wrong, the design is nice and it does come with a lot of space for a big build with liquid cooling, a number of built-in USB ports etc. and fans are included too. But, the fact it seems cheaper to buy from abroad and ship over is just not great.
Overall – 3.9/5
The Irid 400 RGB PC Case really is a beautiful specimen. But, looks aren’t everything in life. There are a few small improvements that can be made, plus maybe some more clear instructions included as well. Still, it is spacious, comes with fans as standard and has plenty of places to plug things in on the top panel. Just a shame that it is so expensive right now compared to how affordable it seems abroad. But hopefully, that changes in time as Genesis step up their game in the UK.
The Genesis Irid 400 RGB PC Case is available now. For more information on the case, click right HERE. To check out more of our reviews, click right HERE.