So today I'm going to be having a look at a new product and it's new in the
sense that it's not even released in North America yet. This is the Fractal
Design Define R2 computer case. This is a Swedenbased company. Okay. And this is
their first case or well their first three because it comes in three
different colors. So let's have a look at what makes this case unique. First of
all, it has a stylish front panel with noise insulated door. So the first thing
you'll notice about it is it has a very very sleek design. There's really
nothing to it. It's very clean looking. Okay. Okay, so it has a unique module
vent feature that allows you to choose between optimal silence or optimal air flow. So, we'll show you that in a
minute. Effective noiseabsorbing panels mounted on the side and top. 10 drive
bays, including eight internal 3 and 1/2 in bays and two external 5 and 1/4 in
bays. I love to see this because how many times have you seen a computer that
actually has nine 5 and 1/4 in devices in it? And yet, that seems to be the
trend with so many cases these days. I'm glad to see a focus on more hard drives
since that's what people are actually adding to their computers. Sturdy
overall case quality. Two front 120 millimeter fans with one included. Two
top 120 or 140 mm fans and those are optional. One rear 120 mm fan included.
One side 120 mm or 140 mm fan optional.
A bottom 120 or 140 mm fan optional. And a bottom intake hole for the power
supply. So, you can see that despite the fact that they market it as a silent
case, you can actually load it up with a great deal of fans and uh still get good
cooling performance out of it. Now, you should notice that this is Wow, this is
just taped like crazy. I really wish I'd gone and gotten a knife before I started
this, but what are you going to do? Um, this has actually made its way here as a
as a sample all the way from Sweden. So you can see that the job they do packing
it and the box that they use is actually good enough to survive a a ground
shipment first across Europe and then across Canada. It actually landed in
Toronto. So and then it made its way all the way here to me in Vancouver. Oh
yeah. Here are the three colors. So the one that we have here is black pearl and
it's also available in titanium gray and silver arrow. Oh, and then we've
actually got some pictures over here. So, I'll let you enjoy those pictures
while I continue to work away at this tape with my screwdriver cuz the
magnetic tip keeps coming out when I try to jab it through the tape. And this is
not not working out as well for me as I would have perhaps hoped. There we go. I
finally have the box open. So, the first thing we find inside is a user's manual
for the Define R2 ATX case. They give you a little bit of information. So, the
product is guaranteed for one year. Little bit about the concept of Fractal
Design. Designed and engineered in Sweden. Excellent. They give you an
overall list of the features. Okay, cool. Let's get this baby open. Now,
what I've heard about this case from the uh couple of North American reviews that
we've seen so far is that it smells bad when you first open it. And that's a
result of the noise dampening material that they use in the side panels and the
top. So, apparently the smell goes away after about a week. So, it's one of
those things where yeah, that's a sacrifice you have to make. So, it comes
packed in
as long as you're using a good quality box. I guess it's about an inch of foam
and it's a good quality foam, so you're not going to run into issues where it'll
crack in shipment. Like you can see, it's the flexible type. So, those thin
foams where it uses the hard foam and it can crack, you can find that those cases
can end up arriving damaged. But this one looks like it would be just fine.
And I mean, it did make its way here from Sweden. So, if that doesn't vouch
for it, then I don't know what does. So, here we have it. The Fractal Design R2
case. Peel off the front. Okay. So, why don't
we start with the outside of this guy? So, uh up at the top here, we've got the
power button, which glows blue when it's on. Then we've got the front headphones
and mic, two USB ports and one E SATA port. And then we can open up the front.
Okay, that's kind of nice. So in the front we first we have the sound
deadening foam. And you can see that the way that the uh Oh, actually I don't
know how the front fans get access to air flow. I think there are Oh, there's
ventilation here. Oh, this is kind of smart. So the ventilation all comes out
the side of the front panel. Okay. And
that is how the fans which sit behind here actually get access to air flow.
And you can see that these have filters on them. And you undo the screws here.
And then you can pull out the fans that way. That's kind of nice. So then you've
got one 5 and 1/4 in and one 5 and 1/4 in with a 3 and 1/2 in external adapter.
So you could potentially do like your Blu-ray drive and your media card
reader. Something like that would be sort of the recommended configuration
for a case like this. Front door has a magnet, so it actually shuts in place.
Just like that. Overall quality of the front door is good. You don't see any
warping or anything like that. All right. So, why don't we keep moving
around? This side of the case is very plain, very clean. You can see there's a
little bit of residue on it from the packing. So, that should come off in due
time. Around at the back, we've got a couple of holes for water cooling. I
mean, most people don't really use these, but what are you going to do? We have one 120 mm fan. And it's the little
touches like this that I like to see. We've got white PCI back plates. Okay,
so it looks kind of sharp at the back. Little bit more ventilation space. And
then there's a case for your bottom mounted or there's a case there's a spot for your bottom mounted power supply. So
let's take off the side panel and see what we find on the inside.
Okay, side panel is officially off. Wow, that's heavy. Oh, okay. Yeah, there is
our sound dampening material right there. So, it's got kind of a sticky,
grippy feel to it. Okay. And this part comes away for you to mount a 140 mm fan
on the side if you're not quite as concerned about noise and you're more
concerned about cooling. So, the inside of the case, you can see it features a
lot of sort of up-to-date features. For example, you've got the cutaway hole for
the CPU cooler. So, that means that you can install a new CPU cooler without
taking out the motherboard. That's a great feature. I love to see it. You've
got an overall white and black color scheme. So, you can see the fans are
white and black. The PCI back plates are white and black. The included fans are
sleeved. It's not a great quality sleing, but it's functional, and it looks a lot better than seeing bare fan
wires. Okay. Up in the top, aha, they've
got their their uh sound dampening material, which you can remove and mount
120 mm fans or 140 mm fans. That's very
cool. I'm guessing that's their module vent feature, which allows you to either
turn things into a vent or turn them into something that doesn't allow sound
to escape. This is something I want to see more of. All of the front panel
connectors are black already because most people are going to want them
black. When's the last time you saw like a a red sleeved power supply, for
example. So, if you want it to match the rest of your case, that's a great way to
make sure that it happens. All right, other things to note. Uh, first of all,
the entire interior of the case is painted. This is something that I want
to see more of, especially on cases in this price range. You've got these cool
rubber grommets that we've seen on a couple cases. I've seen it on the NZ XT
Hades. Um, obviously it debuted on the Corsair Obsidian 800D, but it makes
cable management just way, way more convenient. Okay, so let's have a look
down here. Bottom mounted power supply with the vent holes. So that means you
can turn it this way so that the fan is on the bottom and it'll draw fresh air
from the bottom of the case. And then again, you can put a 120 or 140
millimeter fan here. Okay. So, there's your three and a half
inch adapter there. Okay. All the accessories come in a little box right
here. Oh, you can see. Oh, look at that. One of our 3 and 1/2 in hard drive sleds
actually came dislodged in shipping. So, why don't we have a quick look here on
camera even to see if that actually damaged the case. So, we've damaged our
paint job a little bit, but it's nothing too significant. And when we go to slide
it back in, oh, it's just fine. Okay. Well, that's I'm really glad to see
that. I would have hated for that to be damaged. So, let's have a look at what we've got included here for accessories.
A lot of screws. Tons and tons of screws. So, you've got longer screws
there for the hard drives. You've got your motherboard standoffs, the standard brass kind. You've got screws for
optical drives. And you've got screws for the motherboard. Awesome. Oh, this
is nice. Oh, this is really nice. Cool. Check this out. Okay, so they've
actually included a fan controller. It's
a white PCI bracket, powder coated white, just to match the rest of the
white ones at the back. All right. And then you can plug in uh looks like
three fans. Oh, that's that's terrific. So, it's actually got a splitter that
allows you to simultaneously use this knob to control three of the fans in
your case. And then it's just got a little power adapter just like that. That is a very that's little touches
like that that really set something apart from the from the competition. All
right. So, here is our 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
eight hard drive sleds. And I actually didn't give you a closer look at these.
These are powder coated white. And you can see that they've got rubber grommets
to isolate the hard drive against noise. All right. So, overall, I'd say we've
had a pretty good look at the Fractal Designs R2. Thank you for checking it
out with me and uh thank you for checking out my video blog.