When, in the course of visiting suite after suite, booth after booth at a technology trade show like CES, you realize that structure of most companies’ booth personnel is one “techie” or actual employee, followed by several hired PR or spokespeople that maybe, just maybe, were chosen for their aesthetic appeal rather than their actual connection with the product on display, you tend to get jaded.
That’s why our visit with NZXT was so surprising. When we were greeted by the NZXT marketing team and offered refreshments before our product tour, we were boorish enough to assume that the group of attractive and fashionable men and women were—and I’m trying not to sound cynical here—more “public facing” than “technical” employees.
We couldn’t have been more wrong. We met with no less than the head of marketing, their PR liaison, their lead designer, and the CEO himself. Irene Phung, head of Marketing, and Kitty Mach, NZXT PR, led us off on a merry tour of NZXT’s new products for 2012.
Cases
The trend for 2012 in PC enclosures seems to be color choices. The first cases we saw were the Phantom 410 and its three color options:
Color choices of the Phantom 410
The Phantom 410 is a smaller mid-tower version of their well-received Phantom. It features most of the same amenities as its big brother, but it comes in at a bit more reasonable size for those who don’t need a full-tower case. It also features a few tweaks that the original Phantom lacks, most notably a fan bracket for the hard drive cage that can tilt at various angles to direct the airflow where it’s most needed. They showed three new colors in the suite: White with blue accents, black with white, and black with orange. In fact, that’s a theme with all their product lines this year: more color options. They are very, very concerned with giving their customers aesthetic choices.
They also showed off their new top-of-the-line flagship case, the Switch 810. This case screams “premium” in every way. The demo unit they were showing was an absolutely fully loaded monster of a machine with three-way SLI and a top-to-bottom custom-built water cooling loop built by NZXT’s Rob Teller with components from Watercool. They wouldn’t let us take pictures with the case open, but:
NZXT Switch 810 at CES 2012
The system also featured NZXT’s awesome LED cables, and showed off the 2012 NZXT features including the extra deep top of the case to support large radiators, the tilting fan bracket for the drive cages, the removable dust filters at the bottom and front, and one of those “Why hasn’t anybody else thought of this” features—a tiny LED above the motherboard backplate that you can switch on to see behind the machine if you need to plug or unplug anything.
The Switch 810 is on the Icrontic test bench now, and we’ll have a full review up after the CES chaos.
Fans
Cases weren’t the only order of the day. Irene and Kitty showed off the upcoming new line of case fans; silent bearing beauties with 13 acrylic blades (instead of plastic). The blades are surprisingly hefty and push a lot of air. Because the blades are clear, the LEDs in the bezel light them up in a most pleasing fashion:
NZXT fans at CES 2012
Again, you can see that color choices are the order of the day. Red, Green, White, Blue, and Orange were shown.
Power Supplies
They were showing their HALE line: The HALE82 and HALE90. Irene proudly mentioned that the internals were top quality Seasonic components because “We know that our customers are smart and that they want the best.”
Accessories
NZXT card readers: Mesh and Gloss
We also got to see a really nice looking 5.25″ front-panel flash card reader in white and black, and a yet-to-be announced series of laptop coolers. The laptop coolers were particularly impressive as we saw four different concepts, each with a unique feature. One had movable fans so that you can aim them exactly where they needed to be (under the laptop’s fan intake), one was almost like a Dyson Air Multiplier, with a single large vent and no visible blades, and one was angled mesh aluminum that was bus powered. We couldn’t take any pictures because they were still in the prototyping stage.
NZXT Culture
While nothing we saw at the NZXT suite was mindblowing or revolutionary (except that little light over the motherboard ports!), we still left feeling really good about the company. If you spend some time reading their blog you can begin to understand: This is a company of gamers. Everybody in that room could talk the talk and walk the walk. Irene and I had a rousing conversation about Battlefield 3 and EA’s Origin. CEO Johnny Hou talked about his burgeoning addiction to SW:TOR even as we joked about our Steam chats regarding Skyrim. Rob Teller started his NZXT journey as a 15 year old kid on their forums.
When you get to meet the people behind these brands, you get to see the big picture, and you begin to understand what sets these products apart. The next time I’m buying something as seemingly generic as a PC fan, I’ll choose NZXT because I know that it was designed with care by people who talk like me and share my hobby.
The most ringing endorsement I can give NZXT is that they are, in many ways, just like Icrontic. I think you guys know what I mean.
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