http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&category=2&prod=32 Looking good for people who did not like agressive fridge look. As a seeming startup, could be worth a review?
That case sure looks promising. I especially like how - Most of the drive cage area is made for the 3,5" drives (who needs 5,25" drive bays anyway? Or more than two of them...) - The extra fan holes come blocked with what seems like bitumen And a full review: http://www.sweclockers.com/artikel/6197-fractal_design_define_r2
I've just taken delivery of one of these with the Titanium front panel from Quiet PC (quite lucky it seems as it looks like everywhere has blown through their stock allocation until December). First impressions are very good indeed, very similar to the P182 (which is no bad thing), but has a single compartment design with more fan mounts so should provide better airflow. It also has sound proofing material on all sides of the case (except the bottom), including all unused fan mounts as Jipa said, so should be nice and quiet too (will have to wait and see how loud those Fractal Design fans are first). I might look at getting a proper detailed review up (with pictures!) at some point since there still isn't an English language one that can see, but it might have to wait until my post-Christmas upgrade because I've got a crapload of uni work on at the moment.
There have been some threads over at sweclockers about the bitumen-pieces falling off of the plasticsheets that cover the fanholes in the top. But undoubtedly you get A LOT for your money in this case, black coated internals, space for 30cm/12" long cards, 8(?) 3.5" slots along with 6 120/140mm fanmounts. However, I wouldn't recommend using the fan-controller that comes with the case. It feels very cheap and the first thing I experienced when connecting the fans to it was one of the cables falling out of place from the fan-controller. But overall, it's a very nice case, for that amount of money.
Yeah, I noticed the bitumen sheets were peeling away at the corners on one of the sides of the case, nothing a little superglue or other adhesive substance won't fix. The build quality is generally very good aside from that though. I probably wouldn't have bothered using the fan controller anyway, it seems a bit pointless, and the only other thing I would complain about is that none of the hard drive bays are removable (I doubt I'll ever had the need for 8 HDDs) to improve airflow from the front fans. I'm glad I decided to go with this case though, as I didn't want to go spend over £100 and didn't like the look of the new P183, while most of the cheaper cases have flashy mesh front grilles with LED fans blaring through which I don't really care for.
Hmm, looks rather nice actually... Its just begging for a 120x2 or even a 140x2 Radiator in the front.
Thread revival.... I found this while poking around on ebuyer this morning. Wasn't seriously looking for a new case, but this one literally jumped out of the screen at me and now I think I must have it. Reviews of this case seem very hard to come by; I've only found one so far, on mektu.net. They concluded that the build is a little bit flimsy in some areas, and the paint rubs off on the white HDD caddies quite easily, but a very good case and excellent value for money. Opinions I've seen on other forums seem to support the value for money aspect, but I have seen complaints about it being awkward to route hoses for watercooling setups. Would be good to see it under the bit-tech microscope.
