In Win 703 Case Review

[section_title title=Closer Look – Exterior]

Closer Look – Exterior

In Win have a fair range of budget boxes with a choice of aggressive or contemporary designs, and the 703 fits nicely in that mid-budget contemporary section retailing for around £55 at Overclockers at the time of this review. It’s a steel case with your choice or colours being either black with brushed aluminium and red accents or white with black, and has a large window to allow you to see all the components in your system.

But what corners have been cut, in a financial sense, to bring the In Win 703 out to the public at this price? Is it simply a box with no soul or have those legendary designers done something special yet again to ensure their place in the PC history books? I took a look at the case, hunting for all the features and flaws to give you the lowdown.

At first glance, the In Win 703 accommodates only one optical drive or similar front bay component, but it also has two more 5.25” bays which are hidden by the front fascia.

The side of the fascia is where you find the vents along the red accent stripe on either side.

Also on the fascia is the power button, just one USB3.0 port along with two USB2 ports. HD audio jacks and HDD LED is present with the rest of the roof solid without any vents.

A large window popping out from the panel is the main feature of the side of the case, along with the vents along the red edge of the fascia. As usual, though, it’s rather difficult to get a reasonable photo of the windowed side due to the amount of reflection. Sorry about that.

Being a full ATX case, there are 7 PCI-E expansion slots at the back which snap off when needed. It would have been nice to see these being replaceable to allow you to swap components around if necessary and then blank off the empty slot again, but this is one of many costs-saving considerations.

The second 120mm fan, a red LED one for this version, is installed in the rear exhaust.

A curious addition is the almost obligatory water cooling tube holes in the back. It’s hard to imagine anyone actually putting a custom loop in this case since none of the fitted HDD / ODD cages can be removed without drilling out the rivets. However, utilising a rear-mounted radiator and perhaps a 5.25” reservoir would be one way for these holes to be useful. At least they are covered with rubber grommets.

On the bottom of the case are four large rubber feet which raises the case by approximately an inch allowing for a good amount of air flow through the two fan grills. One grill allows for air to reach the PSU and the other can house a 120mm fan and it’s nice to see that these are both filtered. While the filters aren’t exactly easy to remove they can be taken off and replaced with care, but try to avoid creasing them.

There are a number of accessories: along with the anti-vibration pads for the HDD trays, there are also numerous screws, a POST speaker and a few reusable cable management ties – ideal if you want to re-arrange your cables and keep some out of the way while you build.