Viako Mini Letter ML-Style Review 0

Viako Mini Letter ML-Style Review

Value and Conclusion

  • The Viako ML-Style will sell for around 99 USD or 99 Euro at retail, while the Power Kit should set you back some more.
  • Extremely well built little ITX chassis
  • Simple and beautiful understated external looks
  • Good two tone looks
  • Available in black/red or silver/black
  • Internal fan surprisingly quiet
  • Easy assembly
  • 120 W power architecture
  • High quality, custom built converter board
  • Can hold a 3.5" drive with sufficient planning
  • The "power kit" is quite affordable for such a chassis
  • ODD can only be secured properly on one side
  • Watch out when using 3.5 inch hard drives as this will most likely require low-profile memory modules
  • Silver screws on fan
  • Big silver power button on the black case - not the best design choice
  • Limited availability outside of Asia
We were quite impressed with the little and simple Viako ML-55 chassis and thus expected to find similar attributes within the Viako ML-Style. For a HTPC chassis two aspects are on top of everyone's wish list: looks and low operating noise. The Viako ML-Style offers both as the materials used and the overall design are excellent and the included fan in combination with the passive power solution results in quiet usage. As with every compact ITX chassis, the user is more willing to compromise with the components used, which is something you will have to do here as well.
There is naturally no way to stuff a big CPU cooler in the case and as seen in this review, blindly installing desktop components will also result in various problems. All this can be forgiven as there are simple solutions to this, but the fact that a standard Sony ODD drive cannot be secured properly is a bigger issue. While normal tape did the trick, this is certainly not something you would expect to be using. Interestingly enough, the images on the Viako website never show the chassis fully assembled with an optical drive present. Due to the fact that the case is affordable and the problems can be solved with more or less conventional methods, I think one will be quite happy with the final result of owning the chassis, thus the Recommended Award. If Viako can fix the issue of the ODD assembly, then there is nothing in the way of an Editors Choice - so Viako get that engineering team cracking!
Recommended
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Dec 23rd, 2024 04:14 EST change timezone

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