Overall and Final Verdict
With the first few Uni Fan designs Lian Li was on point and surprised me with a creative design that was not great looking, but read the market and brought features like the daisy chaining and simplified wiring at exactly the right time. But with the new Uni Fan AL120 V2s that I’m checking out today being the first Uni Fan V2s that I’ve had to check out I’m even more impressed that Lian Li was able to build on their original design and improve an already good design. They eliminated some of the thick wire connections with the new recessed plug. That combined with the removable hooks on the side the daisy chain design doesn’t have to prevent their use in any tight spaces like they used to. They recognized that with the fans being used often on water cooling that they needed a little more airflow and static pressure and improved on that with the thicker design and a little more fan speed. They also added to the AL series lighting with the addition of lighting on the top and bottom edges on top of all of the lighting on the front and back of the fan which looks great alongside the aluminum accents on the top and bottom edges.
All of the new changes add to what they already had going like the long list of lighting effects supported. If you haven’t seen the daisy changing before you are going to be impressed with how you can eliminate a majority of the wiring to and from the fans, especially in situations where you can link a bunch together like in the front or top of a case. When compared to options from the competition where each fan has a fan wire and then a lighting wire it adds up. Really the only downside that I’ve run into is the fans do get noisy when you have them cranked up to their highest speeds. They aren’t noticeably louder than the last generation even with the 100 RPM higher fan speed which is good. But it is worth noting that a good fan profile is worth its weight in gold with the Uni Fan AL120s which Lian Li has great software that will make that easy.
More than anything though it's always the pricing that surprises me. So a three-pack of fans which also includes the L-Connect 3 controller is $89.99 which is a great deal. The 120 mm single fan is $27.99 in black or white and then the 140mm fans are $30.99 each, sadly you can’t get those in the triple pack with the controller. The Uni Fan pricing from the looks of it has pushed Corsairs pricing down as well but even then a lot of those kits still cost more and don’t have the daisy chaining ability that makes the Uni Fans stand out.
Live Pricing: HERE
