WE’VE REITERATED IT enough at this point, but it’s worth mentioning again. This was a hard build. It might not seem it, but chassis like these tend to draw blood during the construction, even for our experienced hands. They’re cramped, difficult to work in, and generally require considerably more thought, tact and expertize than what you’d find from a mid or full-tower chassis. That’s not a bad thing, though. The Era 2 is incredible to look at, and performs fantastically throughout the whole procedure. You’ve got to bear in mind when you’re looking at a chassis like this that it’s built with this massive volume constraint placed on its head, and yet it still needs to fulfil the modern-day requirements that a good case needs to have. It needs to support modern hardware, modern specs, correct cooling, keep temperatures low, look the part, provide multiple build avenues, be available in different colorways, and most importantly, not break the bank for the company to manufacture and design. Getting all of that right is a massive balancing act.
With all that said, Fractal really nailed it on this one. Our only complaint is that perhaps it could do with a little more flexibility on that power supply mounting location, and it could probably do with a touch more clearance to allow for better cable management on the EPS/ CPU power for the motherboard. And of course, the glass window comment. There’s kind of an elegance in a lot of ways to that skeleton look as well. It’s a bit niche, but that barebones look is pretty sick. We actually debated leaving the shell off entirely and doing something radical with our cover image, but that would take away from the satin paint job.