Vetroo isn't a familiar brand to me and I've not used a PC case of theirs to build a system. That was until I spotted the Vetroo K1 Pangolin and thought it looked outlandish and incredible. I'm no stranger to open-air cases with our test benches and the old Thermaltake P5, which saw me through the AMD FX days. Still, I was intrigued by the Vetroo K1 Pangolin since it resembled the creature it's named after and seemed like a good deal. That was until I started to build a PC with it.

Unboxing the case, I was greeted by a stunning chassis made of metal and two giant glass panels. So good so far! It wasn't until I started to install components and remove parts of the case to install cooling I encountered some issues that made this one of the most infuriating PC cases I have ever built a system inside. The Vetroo K1 Pangolin is not a bad PC case. It's good to look at, performs well under load with powerful hardware, and supports larger motherboards, GPUs, and coolers, but it's an absolute pain to work with.

About this review: XDA purchased the Vetroo K1 Pangolin for the purpose of this review and the company had no input to its contents.

Price, specs, and availability

The Vetroo K1 Pangolin costs $140, which is pretty good for a mid-tower PC case with two tempered glass panels and a unique design. It's not your usual metal box and looks interesting. It can hold a motherboard up to an ATX in size, which should cater to just about any PC build outside enthusiasts. Larger graphics cards should also have no trouble fitting inside the K1 Pangolin, supporting up to 350mm in length, though this will also be determined by the cooling used and if a radiator will be mounted on the front.

The maximum height for the CPU cooler is 170mm though I found this slightly misleading as our larger 160mm coolers were pressed up against the tempered glass panel. No RGB lighting is present inside this case, nor are there any dust filters. Cooling should be good with seven case slots available, though no fans are included. A 360mm radiator can be isntalled on the front of the K1 Pangolin. Though the design is slightly outlandish and the motherboard tray is angled, it's a straightforward list of specifications.

Design and features

The Vetroo K1 Pangolin looks incredible from all angles. With both tempered glass panels installed, it's quite the fashion statement in a sea of standard PC cases. It's named after a Pangolin which it resembles with the angled panels on the front and top. The front of the case has a single USB-A 3.0 port and two USB-A 2.0 ports with a 3.5mm audio jack. No front-facing USB-C port is a strange omission considering most modern motherboards have the necessary header.

Up to 7 case fans can be installed with support for up to a 360mm radiator on the front. Cooling shouldn't be an issue with the Vetroo K1 Pangolin. There are plenty of angled metal design elements and large cut-outs make the case more interesting to gaze at. Vetroo could have gone all-out with RGB lighting here, but not a single LED is installed aside from the power status and I applaud them for this. Supporting three 120mm fans on the front should provide enough light with RGB-enabled blowers.

Being an open-air PC case, the chassis and its internal components are open to the elements. You'll need to be extra careful when handling liquids and other goods around the PC since anything can slip through the sizable openings. No dust filtering is present on the Vetroo K1 Pangolin, hampering any attempt to keep dust out of the chassis. A more frequent cleaning regime will need to be adhered to, carefully removing the dust that will inevitably coat the GPU, CPU cooler, motherboard, and all other parts.

Motherboards up to ATX can be installed and you should be able to fit a 350mm-long GPU without interfereance. Two 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives can be installed using the available brackets.

Building a PC

It's not as easy as it looks

This is where the Vetroo K1 Pangolin falls apart. The first issue I encountered was the torque used to secure numerous screws, ones you needed to remove to attach case fans to the brackets. They were on far too tight and required an electric screwdriver to carefully remove them without threading. I'm unsure if this was limited to the unit we purchased for the review, but it's worth considering if you do not have an electric device to help you. A long manual screwdriver with an extra pair of hands may also work.

The three removable brackets make installing fans easy and cabling can be routed accordingly, but there are no cable channels or routes behind the motherboard tray. This surprised me as the second glass panel showcases everything behind the motherboard too, including the cabling mess that can take place without adequate management and routing. The manual is no assistance either, containing a few photos and some light details. It would have been good to see an in-depth manual, which often comes with other branded cases.

The Vetroo K1 Pangolin isn't the first PC case with a non-standard PSU location. The power supply sits in the middle of the bottom panel, requiring the main power cord to be routed through a cut-out of the rear panel. This isn't an issue until the side glass panel is installed, preventing all access to the PSU. Should this cable pop out (or you need to press the PSU button to turn off the system), you're out of luck and need to take apart the case — and this wouldn't trouble the PC build process if both glass panels were easy to attach to the main chassis.

The motherboard is easy to install, though I recommend only using M.2 drives inside this PC case. With a system fully built inside the K1 Pangolin and the power cable still inserted into the PSU, I was able to fire up our test system, which consisted of an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD. The thermal performance of the K1 Pangolin is excellent with almost no obstruction to the front-facing three 120mm fans. With all seven mounts populated, the AMD chip and Nvidia GPU were able to boost to designed speeds without any trouble.

Should you buy the Vetroo K1 Pangolin?

You should buy the Vetroo K1 Pangolin if:

• You want an open-air PC case.
• You want a unique, interesting PC case.
• You want a foundation for adding your design touches.

You shouldn't buy the Vetroo K1 Pangolin if:

• You want an easy PC build or this is your first system.
• You want to use the largest ATX power supplies.

The Vetroo K1 Pangolin could be an amazing PC case. The build quality is great for the price and you have two large tempered glass windows. It's a unique take on the mid-tower ATX chassis that helps you differentiate your system from the rest of the pack. It looks amazing and is fun to build a system inside to create something new, but at times you will find things that don't make sense, especially when you're done and looking to close everything up and power on the PC.

Having the power supply in the middle of the case requires the main power cord to be routed through a small gap in the rear panel. If you connect it before all your peripherals and video cables, I recommend keeping the glass panel off just in case the cable pops out, which is what happened to me twice due to tension on the power cord. This then required the glass to be removed to access the PSU. An extension cord with a power button on the rear of the case would work as a solution.

Care must be taken when attaching the two giant tempered glass panels as there's no way to rest them on the chassis connections while you attempt to insert the rubber grommets before securing them with four screws each. The holes aren't perfectly aligned, which makes this process tedious. Having preinstalled grommets and tighter control on the mounts would make this a non-issue. With these points addressed, the Vetroo K1 Pangolin would become an excellent PC case.