External view – front
The look of the final Cosmos has changed very little since CeBIT. Consequently, the sample we received is a pretty impressive looking thing.
The handle design has made it into production, with four in total. As you can see below, there are two at the top. However, there are a further two at the bottom, acting as the feet and raising the base of the case a whole 20mm off the floor. The handles are made from cast aluminium and secured to the case with two screws at each end.
Up above the shiny, plastic-fronted door is a matching panel that extends over and around the top-mounted external-ports panel. On arrival, all this shiny plastic is covered with a removable protective plastic film for protection.
The door proper is a solid piece of aluminium and secured to the chassis in the same way as Cooler Master's Stacker.
This also means that the door can be swapped over in a couple of minutes from being hinged on the right to the left - to suit the location. And the door magnet is basically a screw so, again, it's easy enough to swap over.
Opening the door reveals the front of the case with its plain black mesh finish and five externally-accessible 5.25in bays.
Up top at the front, the external-ports panel also carries power and reset buttons and, between them, a pair of LEDs for disk activity and power.
The first thing you'll notice up top is an eSATA port. That's good to see and ties in well with the new external disk enclosures that Cooler Master has recently released.
Alongside is a single six-pin FireWire 1394a port and this is accompanied by headphone and microphone sockets and four USB ports - two more than with previous Cooler Master cases we've looked at. It's good to see this selection of connectors becoming standard on high-end Cooler Master cases - the same array is provide on the recently-released 832 Stacker.