welcome to my unboxing at the fractal design Define mini computer case once
again this is a belated unboxing I probably should have done it quite a
while ago but here I am doing it now so
this is interesting look at that stop
before returning any product please contact fractal design most issues can be quickly and easily solved through our
North American support team neat really easy contact support they just put like
an actual phone number on there although their phone number is
pretty awesome 855 I go
Frack f r a c
nice uh so anyway let's go ahead and
open this baby up this is the little brother of the Define R3 although it
doesn't have a a revision R and a number
after it because this is the first first mini version that they did there was no
mini version of the Define R2 so it has
a few of the features of its bigger brother including modu vents which
basically means that you have the option on
the packing material there you go I never do miss it so there it
is trying not to break too many things here while I quickly get a case out of a
box which is more challenging than you guys would think
there we go so modu vents which give you the option of either having maximum
silence so you can see they're covered right now or you can remove the covers
and have maximum cooling with a 120 or 140 mm fan installed in the side panel
over the graphics card or a 120 and a
120 or 140 mm fan installed in the top above the CPU so in terms of the default
cooling options they are fairly straightforward there's your
manual and dual 120s in the front just
like its older brother it comes with one by default and then you can add another
one right there sound dampening foam on
the inside of the front panel cover two 5 and 1/4 in Bays these are very easy to
remove which is nice one of which is compatible with a 3 and 1/2 in device
should you require one in this day and age I can't I guess a card reader would
be a legitimate reason to have a uh 3 and 1/2 in Bay device other than that I
can't really think of a good reason not these are actually a little bit tricky to get back in there we go okay fixed um
what else was there in the front oh yeah this is
cool so these are these are filtered fans I did forget to mention that also
the reset button has been located here the original Define R2 didn't have a
reset button at all I think this is a brilliant addition because it's really hard to hit by accident but at least you
have one in the event that you do need one here on the top of the case we've
got our microphone and headphone Jacks we've got our power button with a blue
ring around indicating that the system is on as well as a blue LED right here
in the front two USB 2.0 ports One USB
3.0 Port so yes this is a USB 3 ready
case the finish of the case is actually slightly different from the Define r3s
that I've seen so um yeah it's more of a it's more of a matte finish it looks
really good actually there you go slick got a closeup good work slick okay we've
got a 120 mm cooling fan in the back IO
ports four PCI slots this stands to reason it is a microatx case but you've
also got an auxiliary one which you can use for like a fan speed controller or
something like that we've got foam padding around the bottom mounted power
supply as well as filtered intakes on the bottom so
there are up to two 120 mm fans whoops
including there we go the one that goes on your power supply that you can use
down there so let's go ahead and get the side panels off I'll be back in just a
moment so we've taken the side panel off you can see the inner workings of modu
vent that is the noise dampening mat material on the entire panel and then
the noise dampening material on a square of plastic that goes on the part of the
panel that you remove so there you go modu vent is a very simple technology
one that honestly someone probably should have thought of before fractal
but did not that seems to be the secret to
success doesn't it so there's the noise dampening material on that side think of
something that you know should be obvious but no one else thought of and
do it first and then you win so anyway let's keep on uh actually okay I made
that sound a lot simpler than it is it's hard to do that so let's go ahead and
have a look at the internals here so pretty straightforward case if you've
seen a Define R3 before we've got all of our cable management in the expected
places so there's your bottom mounted power supply there's your huge Cable
Management hole for where the bulk of the cables are going to go through then
you have smaller ones positioned for um bottom front panel connectors video
cards anything up here like drives for example any other connectors at the top
of the board your 8 Pin power connector all positioned sensibly we've got a
medium siiz CPU cutout it's not as big as I maybe would have liked to see but I
can see what they're doing here with these bends in the motherboard tray
they're actually reinforcing it and making it stronger in spite of the
cutout and I mean most microatx boards the CPUs within a fair Fairly narrow
range because all of this is your PCI slots and then the board only goes from
here to here so there's not a whole lot of variant in terms of hard drive
mounting options we've got six either 3 and 1/2 in or 2 and 1/2 in
Drive sled so you can see the 3 and 1/2 in ones have rubber grommets and the 2
and 1/2 in ones do not cuz most of the 2 and 1/2 in drives you'd mount in a case
like this are going to be ssds and you're not too worried about vibration
with those CU they don't have any moving Parts fractal design accessories box
let's have a look shall we actually no I'll save that for later I'll take all
the stuff out now just to taunt
you what the devil interesting no no
don't look at it closely we're just taunting them right now only taunting ha you can't see it at
all anymore all right internal connectors we've got our front USB 2
we've got our front panel HD audio or PC 97 audio they go to Just or ac97 rather
they got to just stop including that uh front panel headers for your power
switch your power LED all that good stuff USB 3.0 front panel header so yes
this is using an internal header rather than a pass through and and check this
out you can actually remove um I'm not actually going to do
it I don't think but you can remove this entire cage so if you want to install a
super long graphics card in here and have it be directly cooled by the fan at
the front and then use the side fan as an exhaust you can install a beastly
graphics card setup inside this case in spite of its small size so that's a very
cool thing as well oh oh hey something I didn't show you guys cuz I keep I keep
thinking in terms of like you've probably seen a Define R3 but maybe you haven't so where those front fans
actually get their airf flow from is right here so there's our vents along
both sides and we're going to go ahead and switch over to the back side of the
case vents along both sides so when you close this door they aren't actually
starved they are getting plenty of airf flow which is good because fans need
that all right the back of the case probably just barely enough space to
squeeze a 24 pin back there I wouldn't call it ample room for cable management
but they were going for small size here and it's already not that much smaller
than a fine R3 but it is smaller so if you have a cabinet you want to stick it
in or something like that you knock probably about this much off of the size
of a Define R3 by going with the Define mini in terms of cable management at the
back besides the the uh the one sort of small niggle about the room there's also
the fact that it is very easy with all the included Cable Management Loops to
at least keep your cables lying flat which is one of my big complaints you
got to either have a ton of room at the back of the motherboard tray or you have
to have really smart Cable Management so that you can keep the cables flat
because if you don't have the cable management they end up when you go to close a side panel they're all sticking
out like this and then they cross over on each other then you end up with that
bulge on the side panel but here we've got them positioned all over the place
here here here here here here here here here and here so you should be able to
get them nice and
flat fan cable so only two included fans
here one in the front 12 mil one in the back 120 mil should be fine for most
systems unless you're building something really high performance in here and I
think that pretty much covers it as far as the internals go there was that 120
mil fan Mount that I talked about before when I accidentally uh pulled out the
filter incorrectly there we go now it's in
properly cool okay let's show you the ex
oh I never showed the finish of the front panel crying out loud okay there
you go brushed finish on the front panel beautiful as we've come to expect from
fractal design and then
ah the accessories so here is our 5 and 1/4 to 3 and 1/2 in front panel adapter
you can put that in there if you want to install your card reader couple reusable
cable ties however these work sure they work
some way there we go and you can anchor these inside into the case really neat
two of those we've also got all the screws that you need for everything
including a including a Phillips
head Ziploc B that isn't sealed um oops
including a Philips head so it looks like you have pretty much everything you
need to install your computer if you don't mind using like a ghetto
screwdriver like that interesting um
motherboard standoffs and it included fan controller
yay that controls up to three fans hence the reason for them putting in this spot
right here which is just suitable for a fan controller that has a nice long fan
control knob on it imagine that being designed exactly for fractal own product
two often you see companies come out with products that clearly don't work
together in spite of the fact that they make both of them so there you go that
is pretty much it for the defined mini don't forget to subscribe to L Tech tips for more unboxings reviews and other
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