I’ve always been buying Fractal. Didn’t even know they’re European. That’s awesome.
North owner here, it’s an elegant case, would recommend if you don’t need a ton of HDD bays! :]
Same here. It’s easily the nicest looking single object in my office, still enjoy the look of it after 3 years.
After some stupid gamer cases I splugred on a north. High quality case that doesn’t fall apart during assembly, cut you nor have usb ports that stop working in a month. Temps are good after blocking off the huge vented side as well . It’s the best case I’ve had so far and I’ve historically used meme cases since 2008 onward.
Story time:
A friend of a friend brakes the glass panel on a his Fractal case.
The friend sends an email to Fractal Support with tye intention of trying to buy the glass panel, if it is still available for that particular case. He is being asked about the details of the case.
The next day the panel was mounted on the case… Based Fractal sent the panel … From Scandinavia to Southern Europe … Quite possibly air freight… For free… For free!
beacause your and your friends friends are telling that story online. If they sell even 1 case thanks to that, that’s already profit. it’s win win marketing.
So i bought my case in ~2010 - a Define XL. it came with USB2 ports and they sold usb3 as an option. FFW ~5 years and I now have a use for it. managed to find it for like 100€ online - wtf? Email Fractal and get a response ”oh i have like 5 of those in my office! give me your address and i’ll mail you one”
My 15 year old case has USB 3 ports in the front :-)
I stopped buying any other case probably a decade ago.
That’s just regular customer service in Europe :)
LMAO no it isn’t! Not answering calls, acting dumb when you do, trying to bully the noisy customer away and charging extra for everything even when not allowed by EU law is customer service here.
If I need customer service, I avoid Western products/services and go for Japanese, South Korean or HK ones; they actually respond fast and take you serious, without extra charge.
Wrong sub, I know.
Never had any issues in 40+ years…
Perhaps Dutch electronics brands and store chain are an exception.
You’re right, he took a knife to that TV in under a second. Impressive!
Nah, definitely goes above and beyond. There are some companies that do this, but there are plenty that will do anything they can to make you just go away.
I’ve heard a similar story of BeQuiet. Friend bought a cooler for AM3, upgraded to AM4, asked about new bracket, it was shipped out to them for free. But I think in that case it was actual company policy they announced on their website, as did many other cooler manufacturers when AM4 came out.
Pretty much every company and every shop I’ve used in my 40+ years on this planet went above and beyond. Both big corporations like IKEA and Philips to small local online shops, which are trying to survive in a world dominated by Amazon. I also lived in a few European countries and had the same experience everywhere.
Nope, not even close
Great!
*Acided. See how stupid that sounds?
You’re right, intentionally misunderstanding slang does sound fucking stupid.
BeQuiet, Phanteks, and Noctua are also European btw!
BeQuiet is based in Glinde, Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, Phanteks is from Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Noctua is based in Vienna, Austria.
I bought a BeQuiet case last year to replace a cheap Chinese hotbox, and it’s great. Cool, quiet, roomy, good material quality, and not that much more expensive than the case it replaced.
They’ve always been known for their amazing quality
Noctua has never disappointed me. Have used the same tower cooler for 12 years now and still performs great! Also love their fans!
Didn’t know my favorite case supplier was European! Could have guessed by the design language and the Fractal “North” lol.
Fractal North is dope! And my cat loves the box it came in, still plays with it one year later.
Is it a strange type of box or is your cat just especially fond of it? My cat’s partial to a bog standard haribo box, but that’s just because it’s her haribo box.
Well, it’s kind of a standard cardboard box, but with a few interesting features.
First of all, it’s quite big for a cat, so she can sit and stand inside, but it’s not too big to take a lot of space in my flat.
It is also very sturdy. A lot of cardboard boxes these days are very flimsy. The Fractal box is not flimsy at all and can take a beating from a cat.
It also has handle slots and cats love small holes to put their paws into.
Finally, it came with big foamed rubbery plastic inserts instead of regular styrofoam. Which are incredibly sturdy, impossible to break for a cat and they have big holes, so they serve as reconfigurable maze walls.
Same here!
I’m American and I’ve only ever bought their cases since I started PC building. I even have an AIO CPU cooler from them that’s still working perfectly after 7 years.
My two desktop machines are in a Node 202 and a Pop. I built a computer in a Meshify for my cousin, and it’s my favorite case of them all, there weren’t any in the size I wanted anywhere in the goddamn world when I went parts shopping for my machine so I wound up with a Pop.
Another American here who is a huge fan of theirs. I have only bought fractal cases since 2011, and I have never regretted it.
Any time I see a good small company that won’t be messed up by this “government” we have going on, that’s a plus.
Can’t encourages you enough to buy this brand. Real good products, well done and the attention of details make your case build so nice and easy. You can see they know how to build a computer. Lot of possible variations.
I’m am customer of Fractal Deign since several decades now, bough 6 or 7 cases and never had issues, very good quality product. These cases leave my house only because i donated them to my family.
I’ve been using their 600W PSU since 2013. Just got their North case for a rebuild after having the Define of the same age.
Their products have appealed to me for a long time.
I love my North. Solid front panel IO, good airflow, ample storage mounts, good grommets on cable routing holes, good documentation… and it looks sexy as hell!
How about their chairs? I’m really tempted on the Refine model.
Jesus fucking Christ they spent all that money on a slick interface that is absolutely fucking useless on mobile!
What problems do you have? It works perfectly fine on my phone.
It linked directly to a chair and when I tried to change photos, the sub bar on the right stayed there and wouldn’t even switch pictures. The rest of the site was greyed out and completely unresponsive.
Site works perfectly fine for me, with Firefox on android
I’ve loved my experience with Fractal so far. The case was much easier to build in than my previous essentially noname brand (BitFenix). I also love the looks on both the Fractal Define and Meshify series. But at the end of the day, while your case choice might affect noise and thermals a lot, let’s be honest, the biggest part of a case is how it looks, so all the high-end manufacturers make really good cases, get whichever one you fancy. BeQuiet I hear is also very nice.
I’ve had their Define R5 case for years and absolutely love it. Solid, modular, easy to work with.
I have a Fractal North and absolutely love it. Really high quality components and supporting a Scandinavian company.
