Fractal Brings a Chair, a Headset, and Two Cases at Computex 2024

[Nomad76]

Fractal, the Swedish company well known for making innovative PC cases, wants to create a new way of PC gaming. At Computex Taipei 2024, it introduced a line of new products, one of these is a desk chair (the first one ever made by Fractal) called Refine. It combines the comfort of high-end office chairs with special controls and a design made for gaming setups. Refine comes in mesh, fabric, and Alcantara finishes, and has premium features like adjustable lumbar support and armrests, aiming to provide comfort during long gaming sessions.

Fractal also showcased a gaming headset called Scape. It has custom-tuned speakers for high audio quality and a detachable microphone for clear communication. The headset comes with a wireless charging stand, so it's always ready for the next gaming session while keeping the desk tidy. Additionally, Fractal announced two new compact PC cases: Mood, and Era 2. The first one is designed to streamline the gaming setup with a sleek fabric outer body which slides off for 360° access to the build. It houses a powerful 180 mm fan at the top and can accommodate a 325 mm graphics card. The second case, Fractal Era 2 is a small form factor improved version of previous iterations, with better airflow through an anodized aluminium body and a wooden top panel. Inside, it can house a powerful GPU up to 326 mm in length and a range of cooling options.



Prices, availability, and more pictures follow.



Pricing and availability

• Fractal Refine chair will be available worldwide in Q3, 2024 in the following models: Mesh Dark, Fabric Dark, Fabric Light at $549.99, and Alcantara Dark at $899.99
• Fractal Scape gaming headset will be available later in 2024 in Dark / White variants, both priced at $199.99
• Fractal Mood case will be available 18th of June 2024, with Black / Light models, priced at $149.99
• Fractal Era 2 will be available later in Q3, 2024 in Silver / Charcoal Gray / Midnight Blue variants, all priced at $199.99

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Chomiq]

Kinda disappointed honestly.

 

[Onasi]

That chair and headset pricing… come on, Fractal, these are your first forays into these spaces and you already decided to go for a premium? Maybe don’t be so arrogant? Chair, yeah, okay, apparently everyone likes overpricing those. But the headset? Guys, 200 bucks is decent cans territory. Add a bit for a USB microphone and you get much better than whatever is in these. And if one really wants a gaming headset, a good HyperX Cloud (which are some of the best in that space) is half the price.
In short, what the hell are you doing?

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Kinda disappointed honestly.

Very much agreed. Looks like im going phanteks for my next build.

 

[sethmatrix7]

$549 for an office chair? Wild. You are not Secretlab, Fractal.

The Mood case looks interesting.

 

[champsilva]

$549 for an office chair? Wild. You are not Secretlab, Fractal.

The Mood case looks interesting.

As far i can see this looks like better than Secret labs

Improved design, not sharing pieces with other chairs

And thank lord they are using fabric over the crap fake letter companies use. Secretlabs has the option to choose Napa Leather, which is soft and quality if top notch, but the price changes from $500 to $1000.

 

[Ruru]

That chair and headset pricing… come on, Fractal, these are your first forays into these spaces and you already decided to go for a premium? Maybe don’t be so arrogant? Chair, yeah, okay, apparently everyone likes overpricing those. But the headset? Guys, 200 bucks is decent cans territory. Add a bit for a USB microphone and you get much better than whatever is in these. And if one really wants a gaming headset, a good HyperX Cloud (which are some of the best in that space) is half the price.
In short, what the hell are you doing?

When Fractal came to the market with their cases ~15 years ago, Define R2 had an awesome price/performance ratio (there was a first gen Define as well though), but these days they can't compete with pricing that much anymore.

That headset looks comfy but most likely should've be half cheaper.

 

[Deleted member 229121]

That chair price is not disappointing at all IF it's actually office-grade (500+ lb rating for more than 8x hours duration).
The crap you get at Staples is just that, crap; real office chairs / furniture are expensive.

 

[JohH]

The "Mood" looks like a BlueAir air mover.

 

[TheLostSwede]

That chair and headset pricing… come on, Fractal, these are your first forays into these spaces and you already decided to go for a premium? Maybe don’t be so arrogant? Chair, yeah, okay, apparently everyone likes overpricing those. But the headset? Guys, 200 bucks is decent cans territory. Add a bit for a USB microphone and you get much better than whatever is in these. And if one really wants a gaming headset, a good HyperX Cloud (which are some of the best in that space) is half the price.
In short, what the hell are you doing?

It's most likely due to fairly small production runs, as Fractal isn't as big as they might appear to be. They haven't reported their numbers for 2023 yet, but 2022 they earned less than US$1.7 million.
The plastic moulds alone for these products would cost them the better part of half a quarter of a million, if it's all bespoke. The chair might not be, but the headset is for sure.
It's easy to forget how small of a company they are, compared to the likes of HP, since Kingston no longer owns HyperX, but yes, Fractal are tiny compared to Kingston as well.
I'm not trying to defend the pricing, simply trying to explain some of the reasons why it's high, as it appears that Fractal isn't willing to start selling these products with tight margins.

The "Mood" looks like a BlueAir air mover.

Another Swedish company, so they might've borrowed some inspiration...

$549 for an office chair? Wild. You are not Secretlab, Fractal.

I spent something similar on an ergonomic mesh chair from some random name company, as those are apparently nigh on impossible to get in the Nordics and even in the UK, at least not the ones with a die cast aluminium frame.
Office chairs are pricey in Sweden, but they also last 20 years...
This is the most famous brand that many companies in Sweden use.

Kontorsstolar och skrivbordsstolar | Kinnarps

Ergonomiska kontorsstolar för många olika typer av sittande och som möter den flexibla arbetsplatsens alla behov: skrivbordsstolar och arbetsstolar för arbetsplatsen

www.kinnarps.se

That chair price is not disappointing at all IF it's actually office-grade (500+ lb rating for more than 8x hours duration).
The crap you get at Staples is just that, crap; real office chairs / furniture are expensive.

Agree with you here.

It seems like the chair comes in mesh as well as solid options, making it a lot more appealing, even though it looks a bit plasticky.

Also, tons of more pics of the new Fractal products here

TechPowerUp

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Onasi]

It's most likely due to fairly small production runs, as Fractal isn't as big as they might appear to be. They haven't reported their numbers for 2023 yet, but 2022 they earned less than US$1.7 million.
The plastic moulds alone for these products would cost them the better part of half a quarter of a million, if it's all bespoke. The chair might not be, but the headset is for sure.
It's easy to forget how small of a company they are, compared to the likes of HP, since Kingston no longer owns HyperX, but yes, Fractal are tiny compared to Kingston as well.
I'm not trying to defend the pricing, simply trying to explain some of the reasons why it's high, as it appears that Fractal isn't willing to start selling these products with tight margins.

I can understand this, but it makes the whole thing even more baffling. Why invest such resources into trying to get into a HIGHLY competitive market with offerings that don’t really seem to be anything special and at a price that doesn’t really entice from a value perspective? I don’t think Fractal are stupid, they must understand that they don’t really have a brand name recognition power that easily allows them to pull something like that off. They are strictly an enthusiast brand. They aren’t Razer, for example. It would seem to me that starting off small, with lower margin simpler offerings to test the waters would be a saner approach, while investing the rest into developing their core portfolio, what they are known best (so, cases, cooling and to a lesser extent PSUs), which is also, I would wager, is what MAKES them the most revenue.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I can understand this, but it makes the whole thing even more baffling. Why invest such resources into trying to get into a HIGHLY competitive market with offerings that don’t really seem to be anything special and at a price that doesn’t really entice from a value perspective? I don’t think Fractal are stupid, they must understand that they don’t really have a brand name recognition power that easily allows them to pull something like that off. They are strictly an enthusiast brand. They aren’t Razer, for example. It would seem to me that starting off small, with lower margin simpler offerings to test the waters would be a saner approach, while investing the rest into developing their core portfolio, what they are known best (so, cases, cooling and to a lesser extent PSUs), which is also, I would wager, is what MAKES them the most revenue.

Now see, that is a fair question to ask. I presume they want to broaden their portfolio of products, but this seems like a somewhat flawed way of doing so.
Admittedly I don't know more about these products than any of you, but I obviously have some insights into the industry and manufacturing products and the related costs and this doesn't look like something they sourced, as everything looks custom designed/made for Fractal.

Unfortunately I don't have any contacts there any more, as the Swedish guy I knew in Taiwan left Fractal for various reasons. He was in charge of a lot of the designs and seeing these products and the costs and knowing what I know, I can see why he left, based on what little he told me.

Razer is actually losing a ton of money on some of their products, largely due to the fancy designs which add a lot of cost for little to no benefit to the end customer.

There are plenty of chair makers in Asia they could've sourced a high quality office chair from to test the market and it would've cost them a fraction of this and they could've had better margins.

I got a sub $500 chair in Taiwan a few years back with full die-cast aluminium frame, full mesh from some random brand that seems to be the manufacturer. Yes, I had to replace the gas cylinder after a couple of years, as it was only rated for 110 kg, but apart from that and some dust, it's like new. Sadly I couldn't bring it with me when I moved, so I had to find a similar chair here...

The same applies to headsets, plenty of companies that makes those as well, but again, it would've been an OEM design that Fractal most likely wouldn't have been happy with, but which would've been fine to test the waters with. The fact that they went out of their way to make the weird dock for this, which most likely added about a third of the cost for the moulds (which admittedly is a one time investment), makes you wonder what they were thinking. Plastic injection moulds for that size product are going to be at least US$100k if not more, depending on how many different colours the plastic parts have. We're talking one set of plastic parts per injection for that kind of money. I've been involved in the making of a couple of smaller devices and the moulds for those were around US$50k and that was before the current inflation.

As for the chair, I'm not sure if US$150k is enough, as a lot higher pressure is needed for large parts like that, which means more steel. larger moulds also take a lot longer to make, which means a higher cost. That said, the arm rests and the base looks like something they might've sourced, as they look quite generic.

But yeah, it's a big investment going custom.

 

[Onasi]

There are plenty of chair makers in Asia they could've sourced a high quality office chair from to test the market and it would've cost them a fraction of this and they could've had better margins.

That actually sounds interesting. Do you mind sharing some brands that come to mind that also sell directly or via retail, if you can recall? Via a DM, obviously, let’s not massively derail the thread. I am always on the lookout for reasonably priced office furniture.

 

[trsttte]

I can understand this, but it makes the whole thing even more baffling. Why invest such resources into trying to get into a HIGHLY competitive market with offerings that don’t really seem to be anything special and at a price that doesn’t really entice from a value perspective? I don’t think Fractal are stupid, they must understand that they don’t really have a brand name recognition power that easily allows them to pull something like that off. They are strictly an enthusiast brand. They aren’t Razer, for example. It would seem to me that starting off small, with lower margin simpler offerings to test the waters would be a saner approach, while investing the rest into developing their core portfolio, what they are known best (so, cases, cooling and to a lesser extent PSUs), which is also, I would wager, is what MAKES them the most revenue.

I see it as a high risk high reward move, there's a lot of competition in that market but they're all crap, even the more expensive stuff, it's all the same bullshit racing seats with maybe slightly better materials (i.e. Secret labs) or not (i.e. everyone else?). If they did things well enough and can get a couple good reviews confirming that it's good they have a very good chance of making a killing out of it. At 550$ they're still well bellow the well regarded Herman Miller, if they can get their good name in the mix with chairs like Autonomous and similar they can make a lot of money in the long run.

 

[eviola]

That chair and headset pricing… come on, Fractal, these are your first forays into these spaces and you already decided to go for a premium? Maybe don’t be so arrogant? Chair, yeah, okay, apparently everyone likes overpricing those. But the headset? Guys, 200 bucks is decent cans territory. Add a bit for a USB microphone and you get much better than whatever is in these. And if one really wants a gaming headset, a good HyperX Cloud (which are some of the best in that space) is half the price.
In short, what the hell are you doing?

Stop comparing wired headset pricing to wireless.