Introduction

For what seems like the better part of last year, I was working emails, Cameron was working emails, even Chris Ramseyer sent one over thinking he had the magic fingers to write the appropriate e-mail to address our desire in seeing for ourselves what all the hype was surrounding the Fractal Design chassis concepts and implementation.

To my dismay most of our e-mails went unanswered, all but one. At that point I was supposed to be looking at the flagship chassis, but as luck would have it NCIX.com beggared up that deal and I never received the chassis.

As I was making a meeting with Lian Li on the CES show floor, I happened to show up a few minutes early. While JP from Lian Li was talking to someone I stood and waited my turn, but as I did I was also scouting the floor for my next meeting and I happened to see the Fractal Design booth. After I finished up with JP, I walked over to the Fractal booth and was greeted by a representative who I caught looking at my press badge to see who I was. So offhandedly I asked him, am I on some sort of blacklist I don't know about? I know it was a bit tongue and cheek to say that to them, but it set the mood for a great conversation and what must have been a twenty minute tour around their both looking at what I had missed along with a sick looking BF3 case mod.

As I was leaving to make the next meeting, which I was serious late for at this time, I was given a card and told to contact them for anything I wanted to look at. While my original request some time ago was to obtain the Define XL, since then my views have changed a bit on what I wanted to look at. In the discussions I asked for simply and affordable chassis that you guys are proud to stand behind and if that goes well, I still want to see that Define XL. For now, Fractal has fulfilled everything they had said would happen in Vegas. Today we are looking at the mid-tower, Define R3 USB3.0 in Black Pearl from Fractal Design.

I am glad we have finally broken the ice so that I may see for myself and bring to you what has been making Fractal Design almost a household name, over just the past year.