In the computer PC case industry there has been a rather soothing trend in manufacturers going away from producing mere beige boxes in favor of creating something a bit more attractive for the typical consumer. With major OEM manufacturers like Dell, Gateway, and HP/Compaq producing black, silver, black/silver, blue, and a few other color combinations in cases, the average consumer is starting to expect more from their computer cases. With LAN parties more prevalent now than ever before, there is also a need for a lightweight as well as attractive case for the gamer in all of us.

Enter a new case design from NZXT called the Lexa. Many of you may have seen cases by NZXT before, and I know what you are thinking.... another anime or robot inspired case, right? Wrong! This case actually looks classy enough to be used on an executive's desk at some unnamed law firm (names omitted to protect the ignor.... I mean innocent). I must say I was excited to get started on the review when I received the package so let's get down to business.

Package

FedEx was the bearer of good tidings this time around and as you can see only minimal handling damage occurred. The box even had it's own carrying handle built into the top.

Inside the outer box, the case was wrapped in plastic then placed into form-fitting foam inserts. Pretty standard procedure here. Upon taking the foam and plastic covering off though I noticed additional foam wrapped around the upper portions of the front bezel and rear part of the case for extra protection.

Accessories

The accessories that were inside the case were not in a box that screwed to the HDD cage as suggested in the manual so this case may be an early production model, but are shown below and are as follows:

- Lan carrying "wrap" with pouches for keyboard and mouse.
- Drive rails for optical drives, hard drives, and 3.5" devices.
- Bag with screws, motherboard standoffs and keys for side panel.
- Manual.
- Something labeled ProtekWrap (best guess is something like a desiccant for metal as it isn't mentioned in manual)

I was actually impressed with the user's manual for the Lexa. It was pretty straightforward as far as the installation of all the parts, but was also very legible with only a couple of minor grammatical errors. It was refreshing to see since many are quite more difficult to "decipher" since the writers are not native English speakers.