Features:
The entire exterior of the Matrix is almost all white plastic with a few black compliments here and there. Although one might worry if an entire ATX case was constructed of plastic, but it's actually been designed very well with the Matrix, and I wouldn't say it's "cheap" looking in any way. One thing you'll notice by looking at the Matrix is that it's designed to look appealing from all angles, including the back, where they use a plastic door design to actually cover all the connections made into the motherboard and add on cards. You can better see this door later in the review when I talk about it further.

Starting at the front of the case, both the optical drive and the front connection ports are housed behind two separate vertical doors. With most optical drives supporting the ability to be loaded when mounted vertical this shouldn't be a problem (just make sure you double check that while shopping). The front ports behind the second door are the standard firewire, four USBs and mic and headphone jacks. There is also a horizontal door near the bottom half of the front of the case which hides a 3.5" drive bay. Although somewhat surprising to find at first, this bay would make sense for a card reader outfit (or a floppy drive if you feel like a flash from the past).

The sides are somewhat typical, with a small twist to make things better. As seen in my pictures below, the fan grill on the left side of the case actually swings out about 45 degrees to allow you to slide out a fan filter for easy cleaning. Using a fan filter here is a good idea because the CPU fan will be behind this grill and in a small case like this will likely be one of the biggest sources of air intake. Since micro-ATX cases aren't always enjoyable to disassemble for cleaning, this makes life a little easier.

 
(Click above to see enlarged)