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Wednesday, May 7, 2014

[Rant] Fractal Node 804 reviews are out but I might not be getting it

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Fractal revealed their latest Node 804 case with dual chamber design (just like the Corsair Carbide Air 540) at CES 2014 this year. But this is a micro ATX case whereas the Air 540 is a ATX case.

Finally, NDA is lifted and we see the review sites taking their reviews online.

The following is the Hardware Canuck’s review. That site is mostly about PC chassis reviews and I highly admire their opinion.

But I think they missed out on one crucial specification of the chassis. The positioning of the front I/O. They are not on the front face, but on the left side of the case – just like what Bitfenix did with their Prodigy line of cases as well as its younger brother, the Node 304. This could be a deal breaker for some people like myself. If I bought a case as small as this, I would have it on my desk to the right of the display, on the right hand corner with the left panel almost kissing the wall. That means you won’t have easy access to those front USB ports. You might be able to sneak in your fingers to press the power button. And you definitely don’t want to cover the side where the window is on, because that would completely take away the reason to have a window in the first place – to show off your goodies.

Of course you can still have it on the left to your display – so all hope isn’t gone, but that would not look natural for some peoples’ setups. That won’t be the most space efficient way for some people.

I can understand why Fractal did this though. They wanted to have a clean and simple look for the front as this might end up in the living room just as the Node 304. But I wish Fractal positioned them on the front or even top, and covered it up with a stealth cover.

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