Fractal Design Define Mini review

Small and very almost perfectly formed.

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TechRadar Verdict

It may seem expensive for a smaller case but the Define Mini is a seriously impressive chassis.

Pros

  • +

    Design

  • +

    Storage capacity

Cons

  • -

    No eSATA

  • -

    High price tag

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The perfect home for your mATX or mini-ITX mobo could well be the Fractal Design Define Mini. It's a lot of case in a small form factor.

With the rising popularity mATX, and more especially the mini-ITX format motherboards, the demand for the smaller PC case has risen sharply and there are far more available now than ever before.

This is thanks in a large part to Intel's release of its Sandy Bridge CPUs and tiny, full featured mini-ITX motherboards like the Zotac Z68-ITX WiFi.

AMD has also jumped on the small form factor ride with its Llano processors, like the A8-3850, and A75 chipset, again with Zotac pioneering away with its Zotac A75-ITX WiFi.

You could be forgiven though for not knowing the name Fractal Design as it has only been around since 2007.

But despite being a new kid on the block compared to most of its competitors, the Swedish company has been making some serious waves in the PC enclosure market with its simple, no frills case designs.

They may look a touch uninspiring from the outside but internally it's a whole different ball game, with some excellent design features and great build quality.

The Define Mini is a slightly shrunken down version of the companies popular and award winning Define R2/R3 case, but the only thing that has been reduced is the size.

The Define Mini still manages to retain some of the award winning features of its larger sibling.

Simon Crisp