Review: In Win D-Frame

by Parm Mann on 30 January 2013, 17:00 4.0

Tags: In Win

Final Thoughts and Rating

Exclusivity and premium pricing go hand in hand in this industry, and as a consequence the D-Frame is going to be met with a certain amount of scepticism. Who can afford to spend £300 on a chassis? And what's the point in an open-air frame?

We've been circling the same questions ourselves and we've come to a conclusion; the D-Frame is a welcome bit of fun.

There are sub-£100 chassis on the market that offer greater functionality and better protection for your hardware, but someone at In Win has been given free rein to produce something quirky and, having seen our fair share of simple black boxes over the years, the company's eccentric efforts are a rare breath of fresh air.

We can't imagine who exactly is going to spend £300 on a chassis that's limited in scope and highly susceptible to dust, that much is a given, but honestly, we envy anyone who decides to do so as the D-Frame really is a joy to work with.

The Good

Looks awesome
Great fun to build into
Good cooling performance
Quality aluminium design
Chance your mate won't have one

The Bad

Very expensive
Dust likely to be a problem

HEXUS Rating

In Win D-Frame

HEXUS Awards

In Win D-Frame

HEXUS Where2Buy

TBC.

HEXUS Right2Reply

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I can't agree with “Looks Awesome”
It's aesthetics are in the “Please burn it now” range for me.
It might be more acceptable if the frame was black or dark blue, but with the orange it just doesn't work.

Obscurity
It might be more acceptable if the frame was black or dark blue, but with the orange it just doesn't work.

There is also a red version; the blue contrasting parts on the orange version are black on the red so overall it's smarter looking. You can Google for images of it.

Falls into the same category as the X frame for me - I know I shouldn't like it but I do. I don't like ‘pimped’ cases - not even simple window panels - but I think this gets away with it (even more than the X frame) because it is at least different (without being totally daft - Lian Li steam train case, I'm looking at you).

If I wanted to spend that kind of money, I would buy the Thermaltake Level 10 !

I can just see my youngest kid (20 months) or the dog coming near this. Devastation.

However I do like the idea, it kinda reminds me of some of the rack servers I have seen over the years, but mixed with the idea of not being ultra noisy. All that said though, I have apparently no measure of cool any more according to my other boys, so most likely it's really ugly :)

I think I would file this one under “when I get that funky office where I work with designers and other creatives”