Being a new brand on the block, especially in the highly competitive market segments Aqirys has chosen, is not easy. On paper, having a tall, spacious chassis with four 140 mm fans with both hub and ring-mounted ARGB LEDs, plenty of potent hardware support, an interesting design, and sturdy build quality, along with things like a remote control and some other visual unique selling points, the Aqirys Aquilla sounds like a serious mainstream contender, especially considering it is priced well to boot at around the equivalent of $130 pre-tax.

The interior doesn't blaze new layout or design paths, but manages to impress with excellent liquid-cooling support in the front and top of the case, while staying incredibly clean because of well-placed grommets. It is also nice to see that E-ATX users will not feel like an afterthought when building in the Aquilla, which is often the case with other brands and products out there. To meet the price point, however, some sacrifices had to be made in tooling and complexity. For one, you will be missing small things like thumb screws on the expansion slots. And the side fan-mounting possibility is more of a marketing gimmick than a tangible feature as it will limit your GPU size to 270 mm and may even get in the way of any front AIO setup as soon as you do. There is also how the storage setup is implemented, with a simple cage and single tray for the 3.5" drives, for example.

That said, Aqirys also sells the case a bit short. While it is understandable that utilizing existing tooling and tweaking it to fit your needs will at times leave remnants that no longer work in the new design, pointing out all the functional possibilities always helps. For example, nowhere is there any mention of the real HDD capability and flexibility the Aquilla offers, and Aqirys omitted that fans may be installed on the floor of the case, underneath the shroud, which is the real reason that cover has a vent.

All that considered, you do get a lot of case and functionality for your money where it counts. The Aqirys Aquilla looks modern, feels mostly well engineered for the given price point and offers an excellent case for budget-minded users who want to go beyond the classic mid-tower in size and cooling, especially since it already includes four massive fans with lots of ARGB LEDs out of the box. That means those buyers can simply focus on spending their cash on functional components instead. The biggest gripe and drawback is that it inexplicably still offers USB 2.0 connectors. This is the reason we can only give it our recommendation, but not the additional honors of the budget award.