News - Lian Li PC-Q33 Mini-ITX chassis launched in Europe

[HEXUS]

Flip-open design brushed aluminium Mini-ITX chassis will cost £59.99 from Feb.

Read more.

[kjlp]

Looks like a nice chassis but it seems that there's no concession made to installing an optical drive. Is this is recent trend?

[Biscuit]

Looks like a nice chassis but it seems that there's no concession made to installing an optical drive. Is this is recent trend?

Yep, fairly welcome on IMO. Barely ever use one anymore and for those rare occasions I have an external.

[majesticmerc]

Looks like a nice chassis but it seems that there's no concession made to installing an optical drive. Is this is recent trend?

It certainly seems to be heading that way with Mini-ITX cases. My Bitfenix Phenom doesn't have an optical drive placeholder, and nor does the Cooler Master Elite 110.

Interestingly I thought this would be an inconvenience, but in reality I haven't actually used my external optical drive. My OS installs have both been from USB stick, and my software installs have all been downloads or off my external HDD. I am surprised how little I actually use my optical drive nowadays.

[Terbinator]

ITX Lian-Li for £60? Shame about the GPU limitation, though

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

ITX Lian-Li for £60? Shame about the GPU limitation, though

Agreed. It might make a nice little case for an APU as there should be space for a Crossfire capable card.

[kompukare]

18 litres is smallish, I guess but I am still unsure whether aluminium is actually ever a good idea as the only aluminium case I ever had (Aspire Xqpack matax) rattled quite a bit since the metal was rather thin. Thick steel with dampening foam (Nanoxia Deep Silence or Fractal Design Define) weighs a lot but is far quieter.

[Myss_tree]

On the way to being a good ITX case but not quite there.
A slimline optical drive at the base of the case and the power supply at the top so that a fanless one can be used and the heat escape directly out of the case top would fit the bill for me.
It coud be slightly deeper as well, 300mm would do for me.

[Odeas]

A dremel and 30 minutes would get you an ODD in there, even easier if its a slot drive.

Don't often use discs these days but I still have one in all my pc's for when I do.

[Gadgety]

Looks like a nice chassis but it seems that there's no concession made to installing an optical drive. Is this is recent trend?

It does seem to be a trend.

I'm putting together a mITX system for my kid who will want to have optical disk for watching movies, borrowed games and such. Sure, could get an external, but I would much prefer an internal one. Lian Li, with their modular production concept, could bring out a version with a slit in the swing open lid, prepared for a slot optical drive, feeding either vertically or horizontally. Knowing Lian-Li though, they tend not to hone and update existing their existing models, but rather bring out entirely new ones instead. I find they have made so many "almost great, but not quite there" chassis lately.

[Dooms]

I personally welcome the fact that both laptops and small cases are dropping both 5.25 and 3.5inch bays. My current main machine uses neither even though the space is there (Fractal R4, SSD screwed to the back of the motherboard tray).

For laptops is means smaller, thinner, lighter designs.
For mATX/ITX cases it means smaller overall.

I lose nothing from the change.

[kjlp]

Looks like a nice chassis but it seems that there's no concession made to installing an optical drive. Is this is recent trend?

[...]

Interestingly I thought this would be an inconvenience, but in reality I haven't actually used my external optical drive. My OS installs have both been from USB stick, and my software installs have all been downloads or off my external HDD. I am surprised how little I actually use my optical drive nowadays.

I guess I'm just wary as I've been unlucky in the past trying to boot off USB or external optical drives in the past when I really needed it.

[kingpotnoodle]

Looks like a nice chassis but it seems that there's no concession made to installing an optical drive. Is this is recent trend?

Yep, fairly welcome on IMO. Barely ever use one anymore and for those rare occasions I have an external.

Same here, recently removed mine even though I have more than enough space in the case, just like to keep things clean. Hadn't opened the tray for months, just keep a USB one hanging about if I need it.

That said I did quite like the Silverstone approach with the FT03 having a slit which could have a slot-loader behind, or if not fitted wasn't ugly like unfilled 5.25" bays. The unfilled bays in my FT02 are a bit of a waste now, the case could lose those, one of the 18cm fans and place HDD/SSD disk bays under the PSU and thus be about 6-8" shorter and quite compact for a full ATX case.