Lian Li PC-Q30 Aluminium Mini ITX Tower Chassis Review

Final Thoughts

Price

At around £99 the PC-Q30 isn’t cheap, but I don’t think it is over priced either. Lian Li have always had a slightly higher price tag than most other brands and their choice of high-end components, as well as a mostly aluminium construction and high quality brush black finish that they’ve applied more than makes up for the price tag. There are cheaper products on the market, but nothing that looks anything like the PC-Q30.

Conclusion

Lian Li have impressed us with their ability to do things a little differently in the past and their latest effort have kept that reputation for the strange alive with its unique design that is unlike any chassis I’ve ever seen before. Sure it isn’t going to be to everyone’s tastes, but it is still one of the more fun chassis I’ve had the pleasure of working with.

While I do love the overall style of it, I will admit that it is also somewhat impractical for most system builds. While you can fit a GPU in here it does need to be a little shorter in length to allow it to fit, especially if the power cables hook up to the back or the card and not the side. PSU is limited to the SFX form factor and while that isn’t really an issue it does mean a lower power target than larger power supplies, although that should hardly be an issue for most builds of this size.

Airflow is a little strange too, there is plenty of ventilation around the front and all the work is done by the rear fan pulling air through the chassis. It would have made more sense to me to have a fan in the base blowing air up through it, or at least better utilise the space to allow you to fit an extra fan, or perhaps even some dust filters as this is already a negative air pressure design.

The hard drive mount is nicely designed and easy to access and holding four hard drives should be more than enough for most builds. However, the cables can quickly become cluttered should you wish to wire in four hard drives, a GPU and everything else that goes with a full system, lucky then that most of the cables can be obscured from view in the base of the chassis, but not as well as I would like.

It sounds like I’m being harsh here, picking faults here and there, that really isn’t my intention. There is no doubt that this chassis isn’t really practical in some senses, but I get the idea it wasn’t designed to be. It is cool to look at, it performs well enough and the build quality is the usual excellence that you would expect from Lian Li. If you want to show off your build, that front panel window does look rather awesome.

I don’t feel it’s quite there for our award, but that doesn’t detract from this being a superb chassis, you’ll either love it or hate it on first sight and you don’t need our awards to convince you of either.

Pros

• Aluminium construction
• Light weight design
• Unique design
• Holds up to 4 HDDs
• USB 3.0 support
• Easy to install components
• Great display chassis

Cons

• It does feel a little impractical at times
• No options for additional air cooling or dust filters
• Expansion card space is limited

“Lian Li have broken from convention but still maintained their ruthless pursuit for flawless build quality, materials and design. It might not be to everyone’s liking, but it is always great to see some fresh ideas on the market.”

Thank you Overclockers for providing us with this sample.