Final Thoughts
It’s great to see Zalman enter the mainstream market. We have seen many case manufacturers do this with great success. The Z7 Plus has a lot of great features which include three 120mm cooling fans, room for 4 hard drives, a fan controller, room for a 2.5-inch SSD, and tool-less installation for the optical drives and add-on cards. Also the blue LED fan on the front of case really lights things up.
There really isn’t much I can say bad about this case. Although I really did not like how the tool-less system on the optical drives worked. It took me a few times to get my drive to lock in and then when I would put pressure on it, it would sometime pop out. Another thing that I did not like was that I had to remove both side panels and the front bezel of the case to remove the hard drive cage. It just made installation a whole lot longer. Also the top-mounted power supply design just seems a bit dated.
Right now this case sells for $79.99 at my favorite online retailer. At that price you can get the Cooler Master CM690 II, which has a black interior, bottom mounted power supply design, and more room to route cables. The 7Z Plus does have better cooling, but that’s about it.
Overall ThinkComputers gives the Z7 Plus Mid Tower Case an 8 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Great cooling
– Blue LED fan
– Tool-less installation features
– Has room for 1 2.5-inch hard drive
Cons:
– Plain steel interior
– Top-mounted power supply
– Not much room to route and hide cables
– Need to remove both side panels to install hard drives
