In Win 901 review

The In Win 901 is an attractive Mini ITX PC case that’s oddly reminiscent of a 1980s glass coffee table due to its two side panels, which are made of tinted glass. The rest of the case is made of brushed aluminium, and this combination of glass and metal gives the 901 a rare elegance and beauty.

The 901’s minimal design means that front panel controls are instead to be found on the side, and these consist of two USB3 ports and two 3.5mm audio jacks. The 901 is also full of neat little touches, such as the way the optical drive bay is hidden away under the power supply slot. You can only access the drive bay through an aperture underneath the USB3 ports, and you can only install a slim-line optical drive. Due to the size of the aperture we’d suggest buying a slot-loading drive, assuming you want to install an optical drive.

Another neat feature is the way all the screws come in individually labelled bags, so you don’t have to find the right ones through trial and error or match them up against an illustration in the manual.

Although the interior of the 901 looks confusing at first, everything is designed to enable the organised and simple installation of components. The two hard disk drive bays, for example, have SATA data and power connectors preinstalled, so installing a hard disk or SSD in the 901 simply involves attaching it to the drive rail and pushing it into place. You can then use the preinstalled cables to attach your drives to a motherboard and power supply. You can attach 2.5in or 3.5in disks to the drive rail, but we found that the drive rail didn’t slide back into place smoothly, which is something we’d expect from an expensive PC case such as the 901. Conveniently, you can install a third 2.5in disk thanks to a bracket on the side of the drive bay, which is ideal if you just want to install an SSD.

Under the drive bay is enough space to install a long graphics card such as the Nivida GeForce GTX 780 Ti, making the 901 perfect if you want to make a stylish and compact gaming PC.

A lot of thought has clearly gone into the 901, but it’s not without certain annoyances. We found that the matt surfaces within the 901 picked up too many marks, for instance. The marks could be smoothed away, but still proved annoying. We’d also prefer smoother-feeling drive rails, but these are minor issues if you don’t plan on tinkering with your build once it’s complete. In a similar vein, you have to remove a panel at the back to attach cables to your motherboard and graphics card, although this won’t be much of an issue if you use the side-panel USB3 ports to attach peripherals to your PC. If you want a uniquely stylish PC case, you should put the In Win 901 at the top of your shopping list.