Within the last few years, Fractal Design has been pretty efficient and smart about how they design and position their cases. It usually goes something like this: The brand releases a new case with all-new tooling, usually at the high-end, with a full feature set, and then, some time later, that tooling trickles down to more affordable case variants. This has been the case with the Define 7, which spawned a Meshify 2 and now the Define 7 Compact, which came before the Fractal Design Meshify 2 Compact this review is all about.

That said, this means the Meshify 2 Compact offers exactly the same functional experience as the Define 7 Compact, but with the ever so slightly simpler top cover and the signature mesh front we have come to expect from the Meshify series. While both of these cases clock in at the same price, Fractal Design actually includes an additional retail-grade fan within the Meshify 2 Compact, which is really nice to see. This also makes sense since the chassis is geared towards airflow instead of silence.

In terms of the assembly experience, the Meshify 2 Compact is just great to work with; clean cable management has been made easy, and it easily provides room for potent air or liquid cooling as well as long and powerful components. Thus, the Fractal Define Meshify 2 Compact deserves the same praise as the Define 7 Compact.