The expandable MicroFlex 40A is a swift PC that offers good graphics performance and an attractive sound system.
Our test unit was packed with 2GB of DDR400 SDRAM and a 2.4-GHz Athlon 64 4000+ processor. This CPU isn't AMD's speediest, but the PC still posted a score of 118 on WorldBench 5--the second-fastest performance we've seen at this writing.
The MicroFlex 40A, running a Sapphire video card with ATI's Radeon X800 XT PE chip set, produced good, but not top-tier, graphics-test results. At 1280-by-1024 resolution in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the system managed 131 frames per second; in Unreal Tournament 2003, it achieved 341 fps.
The PC's power is packed into a black-and-beige case with chrome-plated plastic buttons and accent bars. A large but wobbly power button sits in the middle of the front panel below a media-card reader and a DVD-RW drive. If you brush your arm against this button, the system might power off.
On the bright side, two USB ports and a sound jack sit in a convenient location at the top of the case front, behind a little trap door. We wish a FireWire port was there as well. The rear has one FireWire and five USB 2.0 ports, along with 7.1-channel integrated audio, S/PDIF output, and optical and coaxial cable connectors. All ports were labeled or color-coded, or both.
You open the case by unscrewing two pins and releasing a latch. There is also a built-in case lock. Tiny screws attach drives to their cages and PCI cards to their slots--with none of those easy-open retaining clips or rubber-mounted drive rails you might see in a more sophisticated design. But there were plenty of drive bays and PCI slots in our unit, though one slot was rendered useless because it was too close to the very wide AGP graphics card. Although the case allowed plenty of room for its wires and cables, we thought they could still have been more neatly tucked away.
The combination of the Sapphire video card and the 19-inch ViewSonic VP191B flat-panel display produced better than average results in our hands-on tests. Small fonts looked sharp and clean. Colors in our test photo were bright. Our DVD playback was flawless, and the sound produced by the Realtek Audio sound chip and the Creative Inspire P5800 speakers was rich and clear.
Micro Express includes an overall system manual, manuals for the flat-panel monitor and motherboard, and a much-appreciated Windows XP Home Edition how-to book.
The MicroFlex 40A is no beauty, but it's a powerful system with good options for expansion.
Andre Kvitka
