The Acer AspireRevo is set to be the new little box that could. Costing well under $500 (or so Acer claims), it’s a solid media device that, in all honesty, signals an end to the era of desktop-based HTPCs.
While a number of similarly compact nettop systems with full HD support has come out, the Acer Revo sets itself apart by being the first one that actually uses Nvidia’s new Ion GPU (the same one you’ll find in the guts of new Macbooks). As such, the little box allows playback of high-definition Blu-Ray movies as flawlessly as can be – way better than any nettop you’re going to find available.
Acer is packing the AspireRevo with Intel’s Atom 230 processor, which is pretty weak on its own. Couple with the graphics unit, however, it becomes the heart of your home theater set up with relative ease, offering 7.1-channel hi-fi audio, streaming video (wireless N) and HDMI output.
On the Blu-Ray playback end, the device performed at a high-level, totally at par with more graphics-intensive (not to mention expensive) hardware builds. Any Atom machine would have choked at that bit rate but the Revo sailed through it like a lubricated d….you get what I’m saying.
Games looked good, although they needed to be configured at moderate settings. Still, I’ve never seen either a netbook or a nettop offer this much power. Ports are aplenty, as well, considering how small the thing is – seven USB ports, a multi-card reader and eSATA.
Only demos are going around right now but Acer should be rolling these out “at very aggressive prices” by either May or June.
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