WEBVTT

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welcome to my unboxing at the fractal design Define mini computer case once

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again this is a belated unboxing I probably should have done it quite a

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while ago but here I am doing it now so

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this is interesting look at that stop

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before returning any product please contact fractal design most issues can be quickly and easily solved through our

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North American support team neat really easy contact support they just put like

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an actual phone number on there although their phone number is

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pretty awesome 855 I go

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Frack f r a c

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nice uh so anyway let's go ahead and

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open this baby up this is the little brother of the Define R3 although it

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doesn't have a a revision R and a number

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after it because this is the first first mini version that they did there was no

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mini version of the Define R2 so it has

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a few of the features of its bigger brother including modu vents which

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basically means that you have the option on

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the packing material there you go I never do miss it so there it

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is trying not to break too many things here while I quickly get a case out of a

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box which is more challenging than you guys would think

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there we go so modu vents which give you the option of either having maximum

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silence so you can see they're covered right now or you can remove the covers

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and have maximum cooling with a 120 or 140 mm fan installed in the side panel

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over the graphics card or a 120 and a

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120 or 140 mm fan installed in the top above the CPU so in terms of the default

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cooling options they are fairly straightforward there's your

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manual and dual 120s in the front just

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like its older brother it comes with one by default and then you can add another

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one right there sound dampening foam on

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the inside of the front panel cover two 5 and 1/4 in Bays these are very easy to

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remove which is nice one of which is compatible with a 3 and 1/2 in device

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should you require one in this day and age I can't I guess a card reader would

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be a legitimate reason to have a uh 3 and 1/2 in Bay device other than that I

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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

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what else was there in the front oh yeah this is

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cool so these are these are filtered fans I did forget to mention that also

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the reset button has been located here the original Define R2 didn't have a

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reset button at all I think this is a brilliant addition because it's really hard to hit by accident but at least you

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have one in the event that you do need one here on the top of the case we've

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got our microphone and headphone Jacks we've got our power button with a blue

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ring around indicating that the system is on as well as a blue LED right here

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in the front two USB 2.0 ports One USB

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3.0 Port so yes this is a USB 3 ready

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case the finish of the case is actually slightly different from the Define r3s

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that I've seen so um yeah it's more of a it's more of a matte finish it looks

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really good actually there you go slick got a closeup good work slick okay we've

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got a 120 mm cooling fan in the back IO

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ports four PCI slots this stands to reason it is a microatx case but you've

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also got an auxiliary one which you can use for like a fan speed controller or

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something like that we've got foam padding around the bottom mounted power

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supply as well as filtered intakes on the bottom so

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there are up to two 120 mm fans whoops

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including there we go the one that goes on your power supply that you can use

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down there so let's go ahead and get the side panels off I'll be back in just a

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moment so we've taken the side panel off you can see the inner workings of modu

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vent that is the noise dampening mat material on the entire panel and then

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the noise dampening material on a square of plastic that goes on the part of the

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panel that you remove so there you go modu vent is a very simple technology

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one that honestly someone probably should have thought of before fractal

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but did not that seems to be the secret to

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success doesn't it so there's the noise dampening material on that side think of

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something that you know should be obvious but no one else thought of and

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do it first and then you win so anyway let's keep on uh actually okay I made

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that sound a lot simpler than it is it's hard to do that so let's go ahead and

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have a look at the internals here so pretty straightforward case if you've

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seen a Define R3 before we've got all of our cable management in the expected

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places so there's your bottom mounted power supply there's your huge Cable

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Management hole for where the bulk of the cables are going to go through then

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you have smaller ones positioned for um bottom front panel connectors video

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cards anything up here like drives for example any other connectors at the top

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of the board your 8 Pin power connector all positioned sensibly we've got a

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medium siiz CPU cutout it's not as big as I maybe would have liked to see but I

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can see what they're doing here with these bends in the motherboard tray

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they're actually reinforcing it and making it stronger in spite of the

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cutout and I mean most microatx boards the CPUs within a fair Fairly narrow

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range because all of this is your PCI slots and then the board only goes from

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here to here so there's not a whole lot of variant in terms of hard drive

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mounting options we've got six either 3 and 1/2 in or 2 and 1/2 in

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Drive sled so you can see the 3 and 1/2 in ones have rubber grommets and the 2

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and 1/2 in ones do not cuz most of the 2 and 1/2 in drives you'd mount in a case

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like this are going to be ssds and you're not too worried about vibration

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with those CU they don't have any moving Parts fractal design accessories box

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let's have a look shall we actually no I'll save that for later I'll take all

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the stuff out now just to taunt

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you what the devil interesting no no

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don't look at it closely we're just taunting them right now only taunting ha you can't see it at

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all anymore all right internal connectors we've got our front USB 2

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we've got our front panel HD audio or PC 97 audio they go to Just or ac97 rather

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they got to just stop including that uh front panel headers for your power

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switch your power LED all that good stuff USB 3.0 front panel header so yes

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this is using an internal header rather than a pass through and and check this

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out you can actually remove um I'm not actually going to do

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it I don't think but you can remove this entire cage so if you want to install a

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super long graphics card in here and have it be directly cooled by the fan at

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the front and then use the side fan as an exhaust you can install a beastly

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graphics card setup inside this case in spite of its small size so that's a very

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cool thing as well oh oh hey something I didn't show you guys cuz I keep I keep

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thinking in terms of like you've probably seen a Define R3 but maybe you haven't so where those front fans

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actually get their airf flow from is right here so there's our vents along

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both sides and we're going to go ahead and switch over to the back side of the

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case vents along both sides so when you close this door they aren't actually

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starved they are getting plenty of airf flow which is good because fans need

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that all right the back of the case probably just barely enough space to

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squeeze a 24 pin back there I wouldn't call it ample room for cable management

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but they were going for small size here and it's already not that much smaller

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than a fine R3 but it is smaller so if you have a cabinet you want to stick it

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in or something like that you knock probably about this much off of the size

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of a Define R3 by going with the Define mini in terms of cable management at the

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back besides the the uh the one sort of small niggle about the room there's also

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the fact that it is very easy with all the included Cable Management Loops to

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at least keep your cables lying flat which is one of my big complaints you

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got to either have a ton of room at the back of the motherboard tray or you have

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to have really smart Cable Management so that you can keep the cables flat

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because if you don't have the cable management they end up when you go to close a side panel they're all sticking

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out like this and then they cross over on each other then you end up with that

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bulge on the side panel but here we've got them positioned all over the place

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here here here here here here here here here and here so you should be able to

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get them nice and

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flat fan cable so only two included fans

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here one in the front 12 mil one in the back 120 mil should be fine for most

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systems unless you're building something really high performance in here and I

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think that pretty much covers it as far as the internals go there was that 120

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mil fan Mount that I talked about before when I accidentally uh pulled out the

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filter incorrectly there we go now it's in

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properly cool okay let's show you the ex

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oh I never showed the finish of the front panel crying out loud okay there

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you go brushed finish on the front panel beautiful as we've come to expect from

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fractal design and then

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ah the accessories so here is our 5 and 1/4 to 3 and 1/2 in front panel adapter

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you can put that in there if you want to install your card reader couple reusable

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cable ties however these work sure they work

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some way there we go and you can anchor these inside into the case really neat

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two of those we've also got all the screws that you need for everything

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including a including a Phillips

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head Ziploc B that isn't sealed um oops

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including a Philips head so it looks like you have pretty much everything you

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need to install your computer if you don't mind using like a ghetto

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screwdriver like that interesting um

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motherboard standoffs and it included fan controller

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yay that controls up to three fans hence the reason for them putting in this spot

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right here which is just suitable for a fan controller that has a nice long fan

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control knob on it imagine that being designed exactly for fractal own product

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two often you see companies come out with products that clearly don't work

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together in spite of the fact that they make both of them so there you go that

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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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