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Acer Aspire Revo (NVIDIA ION) system pricing revealed

by Tarinder Sandhu on 14 April 2009, 13:31

Tags: AspireRevo, Acer (TPE:2353)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qarus

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First it was dubbed the Hornet, then it became the Aspire Revo, and, now, it's up for pre-order.

What we're referring to is Acer's NVIDIA ION-based PC that couples an Intel Atom N230 (1.6GHz) chip with NVIDIA's GeForce 9400M-class graphics  The end result, NVIDIA says, is a system that's low on power and price but high on multimedia - ports include VGA, HDMI, and eSATA - promising stutter-free 1080p playback and, dare we say reasonable gaming for an oh-so-small box.



Popping up on Play.com as a pre-order item with an estimated release date of 18th May, 2009, the Aspire Revo - from Play.com at least - will be available in four incarnations.

Sharing the base specification of Intel Atom N230 and NVIDIA 'ION' graphics (GeForce 9400M), together with a bundled keyboard and mouse, the entry-level model will ship with 1GB RAM, 8GB SSD for storage, and Linux OS. Expected to sell for £179.99 the value proposition is sharp.

Up a rung and system RAM is upgraded to 2GB, storage to a 160GB mechanical drive, along with Vista Home Premium. Pricing, too, takes a hike, coming in at £249.99. We wonder how the low-power system will cope with the clunky OS?

Spank another £50, up to £299.99, and the specification remains the same, albeit with a 3D game controller and a host of games.

Finally, lay down £329.99 and you'll receive all the goodness of the £299.99 bundle, augmented by a wireless keyboard and mouse.

Thoughts

The £179.99 box does look appealing, lining up well against the cheaper netbooks. Add in Microsoft Vista and pricing, expectedly, takes a massive percentage jump. You'll need to factor in a screen - be it TV or monitor - pushing the overall cost of purchase close to better-performing desktop models, or, indeed, laptops with the similar jiggery-pokery inside.



HEXUS Forums :: 20 Comments

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mmmm, £179 plus linux and xbmc and plugged into my Sony TV, its a done deal ;)
8GB SSD :laugh: get out!
these would make very good myth tv front ends i think especially since they have hd decoding built in
If the SSD drive in that cheapest one is the same as the SSD in the Aspire One it will be completely hopeless, bordering on totally unusable if you were to put XP on it.

Vista will be fine on the higher models. The only real hardware limitation in Vista is the hard drive, so unless this has got something ludicrously old and clunky in there, it'll be just as fast as a basic laptop. Fine for those who will use it.

Of course, Vista is really just a stop gap until Win 7 comes along.
I have had a fair amount of trouble playing 1080p files under linux over the last two years or so of trying to perfect my media PCs. To be brutally honest I still haven't built one that I'm totally happy with - on the other hand, there is now a niceish box in every room in the house (lol).

I'm not totally sure of the difficulty as the machines all play my test files under windows with MPC home cinema - I can't for the life of me work out why this should be better - excepting that the code seems to be spread across the cores more evenly with this setup. However, I still get skipping under linux when cpu load is <50%.

The only computer I have known to play flawless 1080p under linux was running a Q6600 and an 8800GS.

Now, before people shout at me, I don't think that this should be the case. My recent, and very nice HTPC build is a 780G/X2 5050e combination - which I reckon is more that capable of 1080p. Plays back my test files very nicely under PowerDVD9 and MPC but occasionally skips with VLC. Under linux, I can barely play back any of my 1080p files although 720p are all fine. I admit that the flaw here could infact be with the ATi linux drivers, which historically have been weaker than the nVidia equivalent, but I have a pc running an 8400gs that at last check was still struggling with 1080p under ubuntu with all the players I tried.

— all I'm saying is that those people buying the £179.99 box might have to fight a bit to get it doing everything it claims. However, I'm hoping not. If the thing works I'll definately be looking at the Ion platform for a build or two - or possibly a miniITX LGA775 board and a suitable case, if reviews continue to suggest the atom is underpowered —

Once I'm finished with this year at uni and have a summer to myself I plan to write up in full my experiences with these boxes and discuss Win7/Vista/XP/linux as an arugment. I also need to rewrite my ‘build your own touchscreen’ thread as that has moved on apace. I think I'll probably have some sort of Ion platform for comparison as well. So hopefully I can provide a decent helping hand for people wanting to place HTPCs around their home.