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Appearance

The Condor is tall and slender. Let's say that it would be the Uma Thurman of SFF type systems. If the previous statements were unclear, the Condor is atypical of regular SFF dimensions as it is definitely unlike the cubes that everyone else seems to be making. It has the width roughly that of a toaster but it is taller than it is wide.

Let's be honest here. SFF systems are as much about aesthetics as they are about performance and features and this is where the Condor excels. The entire casing is very slick. We could not find out who designed the case and FIC has been mum on the subject but it looks suspiciously like a Palo Alto design, famous for their tool less cases they have made for Micron and Dell. This is high praise indeed as an old Micron Millenia case that housed a P-II I have at home is probably one of my favorite cases. The front of my Micron is not the most attractive but the internal design is excellent. It is modular and for the most part, tool free and I would say that they paved the way for companies like Lian-Li. A cursory glance at the front of the unit does not reveal any obvious drive bays.

Back to the subject at hand, the Condor looks fabulous. One of the criticisms that I had of Soltek's Cubic is the inconsistent use of construction material. While I felt that the stealthed drive bays on the Soltek looked really sharp, it contrasted sharply against the plastic trim. Another example of a consistent use of plastic and subsequent excellent looking products would include AOpen's EZ65. What can I say about the Condor? The design is tasteful, simple, functional and elegant all at the same time. Drive bays up front are all stealthed- there is no discernable bay for the optical or floppy drives up front. On the back, there are no screws holding the case cover to the chassis. The top of the unit is a black grill; holes are not drilled arbitrarily in the side like a lot of other units, the grill looks like it is a styling element and fits into the visual scheme of the Condor yet serves a functional purpose as is seen later on.

Further inspection along the front of the case reveals the floppy drive hidden by the middle section and the optical drive hidden by the left section of the front bezel which opens up in a suicide door type fashion. The front I/O connectors are hidden by a push button panel at the bottom. Although the stealthed cover covering the front panel is just plastic and obviously light, FIC has managed to add some resistance to the panel opening instead of letting it free fall which gives the impression of the panel being more solid.

Accessing the internals of the Condor does not require the removal of screws. A button up top releases a latch that opens up the side of the Condor, again in a suicide door fashion leaving ample room to access the innards. We now take a better look at what is inside.

The grey thing in the middle is a latch that holds the two halves of the Condor together