Micron's Millenia beats Windows' Millenium
Written: Jul 18 '01 (Updated Aug 01 '01)
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Pros: Nice external design, fast, clean internal layout, four fans total
Cons: Win ME installed, CD-RW recalcitrant, company just sold.
The Bottom Line: As long as you know how to do the basics of machine upkeep, this is a fine, fast machine, well laid-out and designed. Recommended with reservations. Don't call tech support.
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| counsel's Full Review: Micron Millenia MAX Series |
The dreams of geeks everywhere always include a new computer. There’s plenty of newfangled gadgets in the typical geeks wet-dream fantasy mix, plenty of trips to COMDEX, royalties from published code or web pages and the worship of adoring fans, especially geekettes. But the ultimate fantasy must include a new computer, with lotsa RAM, hard drive space, bodacious graphics card – you get the picture. The hot computer is the central fixture in the übergeek oeuvre.
OK, so I’m surrounded by a loving wife with a mediocre interest in computers (“it’s a tool,” she says. Tool? Give me strength), a nine-year-old whose main interest is whether the thing can handle his games, and a Jack Russell terrier who barks at the Microsoft startup sound. I am nowhere near realizing this geek fantasy. Nevertheless, I can dream, and I finally nagged the spousal unit into getting this new machine. This was about 9 months ago, by the way, so evaluate this review in light of developments that’ve occurred since then, of which there are many.
This machine was Micron’s retail version (now no longer available through retail outlets). Most of Micron’s stuff is sold direct, through www.micronpc.com. It cost me about $1,200.00 before the $100.00 rebate. I bought the CPU only; we already had a good monitor.
All right – what should you expect when you pop the box staples?
Micron was thinking “retail customer” when they made and packed this thing - the connections for all devices and peripherals, including sound, video, keyboard, mouse and printer are all color-coded with little pictures for the technically challenged. They don’t want you to get this wrong; that’s extra tech-support time for them if you do, so they try to make the startup experience as easy as possible. And you don't want to call tech support. More on that later. The manual is a bit more complex than it ought to be for a machine like this, with multi-language instructions getting in the way of and coming before “Getting Started.”
• Micron ships this puppy ready-to-run; you connect your devices, turn it on, endure the “first-time-look-at-us-and-gape-in-wonder” little show you get on startup, and go.
OK, so you want the specs:
• Pentium III, 800 mHz
• nVidia RIVA TNT2 64 graphics card, 16 MB
• 30 GB hard drive
• CD-RW drive
• 28/6x DVD drive (it works well! Neo whips up on the Agents in good form with no video stutter)
• 128MB RAM
• Windows ME
• Microsoft Streets 2000
• Microsoft Works 2000
• Microsoft Word 2000
• OEM-brand 56k modem.
I added a network card to connect with an existing computer upstairs and to allow my son the pleasure of whipping up on me with his previously-un-networkable network games.
• The look: A Micron has what is to me a cool appearance – their custom CPU box has a smooth curve on the front of the machine and a door that closes over the CD-RW drive. The floppy and CD-DVD are open on the front of the machine. The case is solid; there’s no rattles or suspicious sounds when you move it about. The siding is easily removed with twist-clamps; no screwdriver is necessary to expose the innards, though you’ll need one to remove the slot-plate holder bracket if you want to change or add cards. The cables and wires are neatly contained and set up – you don’t see an incomprehensible jumble when you examine the cabling.
• The keyboard is a regular, full-sized 101-type setup. The wife wanted a cordless, so we ended up with one of those curved, “ergonomic” doodads with the keys split in the middle. Oh, and speaking of cordless – I can sit with the keyboard and mouse on a table some distance away; useful when I have stuff spread out all over the table. But that ain’t part of the Micron setup, so enough about it already.
• This system came with Windows ME preinstalled, but without the OS CDs - there’s only a “restore” disk if your OS gets trashed. I think this sucks; you ought to be able to overwrite bad DLL or kernel files by doing an extraction from the regular ME CD. To be fair, the CAB files are installed under WINDOWS\OPTIONS, but if something corrupts those files, you’re outta luck.
Oh, and regarding Win ME – leave it to Microsoft to find a way to bog down a fast 800 mHz machine with 128 meg ‘o ram. It runs fast out of the box, but start adding apps (which increases your registry size) and watch what happens. Loading and shutdown times (among other things) increase dramatically, and loading certain programs takes a heck of a lot longer than it ought. Way to go, guys.
• Cooling: An 800 mHz PIII can create a little oven in your office, and heat problems abound unless some measures are put in place. Micron’s measures include a large heat sink and CPU fan for the processor, two fans in the back of the box plus the normal fan cooling the power supply, for a total of four. This makes for added CPU life, but walking into the study at home sounds like you’re entering a wind tunnel experiment. It’s good white noise if you want to sleep.
• CD-RW: the system comes with an alleged CD-writing program installed. I’ve found that unless I write very slowly, or one folder at a time, I inevitably get some sort of writing error and I often get a ruined CD blank and have to start over. I haven’t tried any of the commercial CD-writing software just yet, but that’s the next step before I start blaming the hardware for these problems.
• Video: Understand, I was coming from a 4 MB basic graphics card. Going from that to the 16 meg nVidia was an eye-popping experience for me, but since then I’ve seen the 32 MB and demos of the 64 MB super-cards, so I have to be somewhat circumspect about the whole thing. Still, my DVDs play without stutter, the games don’t freeze up (for the most part – Tribes2 gets iffy when there’s a lot of stuff going on at once) and the downloaded videos on Windows Media player are nice and steady. That’s good enough for me. For now.
• Sound: A Creative Labs 16-bit sound device is integrated into the motherboard. One thing you have to watch for are devices - sound, video, what have you - integrated into the motherboard, especially in a retail setting. It lowers the cost, but creates a strain on machine resources and sometimes presents problems with upgrading. Watch out for that. In my case, sound-only integration is acceptable. For some people, it's not.
• Support: I have yet to call support, and my understanding is that this is a good thing: Micron has sold its computer division to another company, and you know what happens to customer support whenever a company is sold. I’ve burned the Win ME CABs onto a CD so that I’m not totally dependent on the hard drive should there be a problem later on. If you’re a person who needs a lot of hand-holding when they buy a computer, I don’t recommend a Micron – they have always had a rep for being a geek box anyway.
This machine is good for what ails the deprived geek who’s on a budget. As I say, I am far from fantasyland and much has happened since I bought this machine. For the price I paid you can now get a gigaherz-plus speed CPU and a bigger, stronger video card. I have to say that I’m pleased thus far – with the exceptions noted herein – and I believe that any moderately competent person would be pleased with a Micron machine.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1,200.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 701-800
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Member: Dwight
Location: Houston
Reviews written: 117
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About Me:
If I smell flowers, I start looking around for a coffin.
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