14 DAY TRIAL // Small form factor PCs can be used for a variety of different things, and Lian Li tried to cover all those possibilities when it made the PC-Q01, though it did make sure not to include any fans regardless.
Granted, the new product does have space, complete with mounting holes, where a fan with a diameter of 120 mm or 140 mm could be mounted.
It will limit how many storage drives you can install though, since the spot is on the chassis floor. Fortunately, it doesn't really take more than one storage unit to make a good PC (or two drives, an SSD and an HDD, if you really want SSD caching).
So chances are high that one of those two bays on the bottom, or both of them, would be left vacant by whoever purchases the Lian Li PC-Q01 anyway.
There is one 3.5-inch mounting space on the side of the chassis, in case you were wondering, as well as a 2.5-inch spot. Or you could put two 2.5-inch drives.
The same goes for the bottom of the case, although, as we said, you can put a fan there, effectively cutting your potential storage capacity in half.
It might be necessary though, because even mini-ITX motherboards exist that can hold the best CPUs out there. LAN Party mini desktop PCs have to be made somehow after all.
On that note, dual-slot graphics card can be installed, so long as it isn't any longer than 210 mm / 8.26 inches. The same goes for the PSU, while the top CPU cooler height is of 90 mm / 3.54 inches.
Fortunately, there are things like the MSI Radeon 270X GAMING 2G ITX video board on the market, so it actually is possible to set up a nice little gaming computer here.
Of course, the company made it for office work, but that doesn't mean that us common folk’s shouldn't be allowed to get creative.
Moving on, the Lian Li PC-Q01 enclosure has an L-shaped cover that can be removed without resorting to any tools.
All in all, the newcomer measures 200 x 275 x 242 mm / 7.87 x 10.82 x 9.52 inches and has a price of €49 / £39 / $67. Don't expect to find it up for sale right away though. Sales are supposed to start around the middle of the month (May 2014), which suggests next week or the one after that.