Fractal Design ERA ITX chassis review - Article

Fractal Design Era ITX Titanium Gray - Walnut
The dawn of a new era?

We review the Fractal Design ERA in a Titanium grey with Walnut finish, a silent PC housing for small form factor motherboards. For this Mini-ITX ready chassis can you'll be surprised about storage, style, USB 3.x options. Next to that, it's rather cute, tiny and probably the best looking Mini-ITX chassis we have seen in a while available in many color designs as well.

The new ERA series is a new and very compact PC chassis from Fractal Design. Though you may only house small mini ITX form factor motherboards it offers space for multiple HDDs and SSDs (depending on your choice of PSU form factor). It can house normal sized ATX power supplies as well as an SFX PSU (preferred really). This chassis has 16liters footprint, and that's not a lot, but still, you can house a full-size graphics card (dual-slot) in the chassis, albeit you'll need to tuck it away alright. Oh did I mention already that it's only sized  (WxHxD): 325 x 166 x 310 mm?

Features

• Compact profile uniquely designed aluminum exterior available in five colors 
• Stylish top panel designed to match the case color 
• Additional steel mesh top panel included for higher airflow
• Versatile interior supporting professional-grade hardware 
• Small, flexible, and space-efficient with volume just over 16 liters
• Supports dual-slot graphics cards up to 295 mm in length
• Removable radiator bracket supporting a single 240 mm or dual 120 mm radiators
• Two storage brackets, each capable of mounting a single 3.5” HDD or two 2.5” SSDs
• Efficient chimney design optimizes airflow across five total fan positions
• Pre-installed 80 mm Fractal Design SSR3 fan exhausts heat silently and effectively
• Supports SFX or ATX PSUs up to 200 mm in length via innovative interchangeable and adjustable brackets
• Magnetic top panel and tool-less latching side panels for easy access 
• Easy-to-clean, high airflow nylon filters on the top, sides and base 
• USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C with support for fast charging and speeds up to 10Gbps