Review: Tiny Infusion 1100-A speedy but lacking

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February 21, 2001
Web posted at: 11:00 a.m. EST (1600 GMT)

by Joel Strauch

(IDG) -- WHAT'S HOT: Tiny's Infusion 1100-A owes its fire to a 1.1-GHz Athlon processor and a hefty 256MB of SDRAM. Running Windows Millennium Edition, it raced to a score of 170 on our PC WorldBench 2000 tests -- an impressive 9 points higher than the average for 1.1-GHz Athlon systems we've tested with Windows Me.

The 19-inch Tiny 19c monitor produced brilliant colors and sharp text that remained very readable at the maximum resolution of 1600 by 1200. A Micro Star MS-8818 graphics board (based on the NVidia GeForce2 MX chip set) drives graphics handily, and an S-Video port lets you output images to a television.

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WHAT'S NOT: The crowded interior affords little expansion room, with a single open internal bay and one available PCI slot. The memory slots are particularly difficult to reach, almost requiring you to remove the hard drive to gain access. The power and reset buttons atop this squat gray and beige minitower are easy to bump accidentally. And a deeply recessed slot for the floppy drive makes inserting disks unduly difficult.

WHAT ELSE: Storage abounds, thanks to a copious 61GB hard drive and an 8X/4X/32X CD-RW drive (which augments the 12X DVD-ROM drive). A box neatly stores software--most notably Microsoft Office 2000 Small Business Edition -- and documentation, including a helpful color setup poster and a thick (albeit generic) color system manual with lots of detailed information. A modem and a network adapter give you two connectivity options. The sturdy Tiny keyboard allows smooth input and provides 14 hot keys for quick multimedia and Net access.

BEST USE: With its great display and speedy performance, the Infusion 1100-A would make a powerful small-office PC, but don't plan on upgrading it much.

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