Published: Monday 18th May, 2009 | Author: Parm Mann
Products: AspireRevo
Companies: Acer (All Acer content)
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email to a friendAcer's Aspire Revo has been doing the rounds in recent weeks as the first nettop to sport NVIDIA's ION platform - that's GeForce 9400M-class graphics coupled with an Intel Atom processor.
Today, the supposedly-affordable-and-tiny 1080p-capable PC has become available at Play.com, and it's... well, surprisingly affordable. Today's listings show the base model - equipped with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N230 processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8GB SSD, GeForce 9400M graphics and a Linux operating system - etailing at a cost of £149.99.
Not a whole lot, considering that the system is essentially a small-and-low-power HTPC that's capable of high-def output. The Revo's armed with HDMI or VGA out, eSATA, six USB ports, a memory-card reader, Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity, and a wired keyboard and mouse, too.
Of course, the Linux flavouring might not appeal to all users, and the single-core Intel Atom processor may struggle with certain tasks. But for a penny under £150, it's hard to complain. If, however, you insist on doing so, there's another option - the £249.99 Acer Aspire Revo, beefed up with 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and Microsoft's Windows Vista Home Premium operating system.
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Looking forward to Asus doing it properly, who uses DSUB nowadays? whats up with the completely useless 8gb SSD honestly, its obviously been designed as a media center pc/low power desktop what can you do with 8gb? several of my blu rays are 10gb plus.
BD's usully average about 30GB+. 8GB is enough for an OS plus apps, you don't need local storage when it's coming off a big noisy desktop/server stuck somewhere else in the house.
The only issue I have with ION is that is it completely CUDA, and I believe that it doesn't accelerate normal DirectX stuff. Would be happy if someone could confirm :)Quote
BD's usully average about 30GB+. 8GB is enough for an OS plus apps, you don't need local storage when it's coming off a big noisy desktop/server stuck somewhere else in the house.
The only issue I have with ION is that is it completely CUDA, and I believe that it doesn't accelerate normal DirectX stuff. Would be happy if someone could confirm :)
Indeed. The HDD is the perfect solution, running just the OS and a couple of necessary programs. This sort of box will be pulling data from elsewhere in the house. Ideally a nice big fileserver buried in the basement where you can't here the fans.
/me fluffles server
As for the ION, I can't confirm but I thought I saw it do O.K. in some gaming benchmarks. It's a relatively powerful piece of kit IGP wise - you will do very well to find something where the GFX is the bottleneck in that system - the single core atom is a bit of a wimp. Reviews say the system is fine for 1080p playback though as long as the system-side decode isn't too heavy (like my horrible Earth 1080p file: eugh).
Also, where are the linux haters coming from? Give it a go as an HTPC and if you really don't like it, ION platforms run win7 nicely and thats free too atm (sort of).Quote
Install XBMC and you have a killer media player that will playback 50mbps 1080p bluray rips perfectly. Yup you need to play them from a NAS, but given it's the same price as a standalone blurray, there's little point in getting one of these if you're then going to add windows and a usb bluray drive and use it just to play bluray discs...
Does XBMC support Purevideo HD, i.e. on GPU decoding? i know it doesnt in the windows version of XBMC but unsire of the linux version?Quote
Shame no one seams to have stock of these :(
Play have been listing the Vista models as in stock since yesterday. The Linux model, which I pre-ordered and has not shipped, is out of stock so they either didn't receive any or exhausted their initial allocation before fulfilling my order. Found a couple of other sites selling them and they are all out of stock also, although one specifially said they were expecting 10 more on the 25th.
Anyone actually got one yet?Quote
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