Appearance - 4.5 of 5 stars
These fans look great! They are not too in your face like some LED fans that light up the entire fan but they also aren't boring like traditional non-LED fans. These fan sit right in the middle with the ability to be accent lighting, full on RGB unicorn vomit, or completely inconspicuous with the LEDs off. The color quality is great, they have a clean color pallet including a Sharp white that I'd say is even whiter than Corsairs!
There are two things I think could improve the appearance of these fans. The first is if the LED halo was one continuous halo and not broken up into 4 sections. Even if the deviders are small they are still visible. The second is the black and white stickers that they use for their logo in the center of the fan. The static logo on the back of the fans was upside down in many situations and also not perfectly straight. I had to flip many of these stickers and straighten them. This is an extremely small problem that I'm sure wouldn't bother 99.9% of builders and would likely still looks great without any adjustments.
Functionality - 3 of 5 stars
There are a few things that I wish was capable on these fan. First of all the PWM setting on the remote doesn't appear to actually take the motherboards PWM signal (or if it does the signal saturates) and instead seems to turn the fans on to full speed. Luckily the remote has slow (ws1), medium(ws2), and fast(ws3) fan speed settings. The medium fan speed setting at first sets the fan to full speed but then slows the fan down after a few seconds. The fans seem to run suprisingly well in a static pressure situation. Three of these fans are on my NZXT Kraken X73 cooler and they keep the CPU cool to nearly the same temperature as the original fans.
The aRGB controller has all the basic settings you would expect from an aRGB unit, however there are some functionality that I would like to see. The first is that the aRGB has some noticeable artifacts when using the aRGB signal from the motherboard. A slow transition on from the motherboard is a blocky transition from one static color to another, when the speed of the transition is increased the effect becomes less apparent but is still noticeable. Similarly when the motherboard attempts to dim the LEDs the color flickers, it appears that you are unable to dim these LEDs without color transitions dispite the ability of the controller to fade in and out without color transitions. These are common problems for most aRGB units on the market so it shouldn't be overbearing on your decision to purchase or not (especially at the price of these). The pre programmed aRGB (fRGB on the remote) is much more refined than using the motherboard and I find myself using these setting more frequently. Unfortunately though there is no internal memory for which setting you used on your previous session so you will be flipping through the pre-programmed settings each time you power up your machine.
One other thing to note is that even though there are 7 spots on the 5-pack control module to plug in aRGB components (including these fans), some of these ports are linked in parallel resulting in only 3 serial sequences being programmed. That is ports 1,6,7 are linked together as are 2,5 and 3,4. This means that components in ports 1, 6, or 7 will all show the same effect at the exact same time and can not be separated like 1, 2, and 3. In doing so 4, 5 and 6 will experience effects in reverse order of 1,2, and 3. This is not a problem for most applications and is quite standard for aRGB controllers but it's worth mentioning.
Noise - 3.5 of 5 stars
These fans are undoubtedly noisier than I would like (although I like almost dead silence). Since the PWM signal from the motherboard isnt getting communicated to the fans correctly I have been using the slowest speed setting from the controller. Even on the slowest setting the fans are still auditably louder than the NZXT ones that came with the Kraken although these do appear to be spinnig faster. I'd place them comparative to the stock fractal fans that came in my case. Although they are far from the loudest fans I've heard they are definitely not the quietest. I'm assuming that if the controller actually used the PWM signal from the motherboard they would be much quieter. They do have good size rubber vibration isolation so that is great.
Quality - 4.5 of 5 stars
The quality of these fans surpassed my expectations being that they are at a low price point compared to the rest of the fans in the same market. There are no inconsistencies with the fan surfaces on any of the 10 fans I ordered. The vibration isolating rubber inserts are some of the better ones I've seen on the market, I dont even feel a hum from them on the case. The plastic fan casing has a seam down the middle where the front an rear sections meet but unlike a parting line from an injection molding process this connection seems mechanical and not bonded. I'm guessing the front and rear portions of the fan casing are formed individually and then has the addressable LEDs installed on each side before being clipped together. This isnt a problem but fans that are screwed through only one face has a larger gap than those whose screws go through both (like on an AIO cooler). The size difference is less than a millimeter but still visible upon a close inspection.
Instructions - 4 of 5 stars
These instructions are short yet they are very clear and informative. The simplicity of setting up the fans and controller is largely attributed to the fact that the connectors are unique and clearly labeled but so too are the instructions. The only potential area of improvement I can suggest is increasing the font size especially for the serial and parallel ports for aRGB and to make clear distinctions for Asus vs asrock motherboard users.
Overall - 4 of 5 stars
It's hard to argue with the price of these fans and the look of them is fantastic. Everytime I show off my build these fans are one of the first things people comment on dispite the hardware being no slouch. These are great fans that I do not regret purchasing at all. They stepped up the appearance of my workstation from bland to eye catching without costing an arm and a leg. The price I saved on fans compared to others allowed me to justify aRGB RAM.
All this being said in the future I will likely consider making or purchasing controller(s) that are capable of full motherboard fan PWM support, memory for aRGB settings, more serial port capabilities, and freedom from remotes.