Review:Acer Aspire Revo

Review Summary

The Acer Aspire Revo Excels as a media player and handles 1080P HD video with ease. It also serves well as a desktop replacement. Pricing is very decent as well. The Acer Aspire Revo falls flat when it comes to 3D games.

I will reveal pricing once / if it arrives in the US.

Pros

• Very quiet
• HDMI port
• Wireless keyboard / mouse (some countries)
• 1080P HD Video
• Easily upgradable
• Small size
• Good price
• 4GB Max RAM
• Free Upgrade to Windows 7

Cons

• Can’t play games well
• Warranty sticker protecting insides (may depend on country)
• Loose / wobbly stand.
• No DVI port for desktop usage.
• Limited audio out options (headphone jack and HDMI)

Acer Aspire Revo Review

07/28/09

4 Comments 557 views

Review Summary

The Acer Aspire Revo Excels as a media player and handles 1080P HD video with ease. It also serves well as a desktop replacement. Pricing is very decent as well. The Acer Aspire Revo falls flat when it comes to 3D games.

I will reveal pricing once / if it arrives in the US.

Pros

• Very quiet
• HDMI port
• Wireless keyboard / mouse (some countries)
• 1080P HD Video
• Easily upgradable
• Small size
• Good price
• 4GB Max RAM
• Free Upgrade to Windows 7

Cons

• Can’t play games well
• Warranty sticker protecting insides (may depend on country)
• Loose / wobbly stand.
• No DVI port for desktop usage.
• Limited audio out options (headphone jack and HDMI)

Acer Aspire Revo Background

The Acer Aspire Revo was hugely anticipated worldwide since it went official in April because it was the first nettop to be announced with NVidia’s new ION graphics platform. Fast forward a couple of months and the Acer Aspire Revo is now available in several countries but has yet to make it to the US.

Here’s where I unboxed the Acer Aspire Revo:

Technical Specs

The Aspire Revo’s full name is the Acer Aspire Revo 3600 and my particular model name is ASR3600-A34.

There are various models and it may vary well you live. You can apply for a free upgrade to Windows 7. Dual core Atom N330 models coming in a few weeks in Europe.

• Atom N230 Processor (1.6GHz)
• NVidia ION chipset (GeForce 9400M G)
• 160GB HDD (2.5” 5400rpm SATA II - Hitachi HTS543216L9A300)
• 2GB - 4GB RAM (4GB Max)
• 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
• 1Gbit wired LAN/li>
• 6x USB 2.0, e-SATA, VGA, HDMI, Audio jacks, 1x Mini PCI-e Slot, Card Reader
• Wireless keyboard / mouse (some countries)
• Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
• Webcam (some models)
• 857g Weight (without power brick and stand)
• 30 x 180 x 180mm Dimensions

The webcam is an external USB adapter, and comes with an optional stand.

One model comes with a 23-inch Acer LCD Monitor which also comes with a VESA mount to attach it to the back of the monitor.

Box Contents

Here’s what you get inside besides the usual manuals and warranty. Note that there is no recovery disks, typical of Acer netbooks:

• Revo nettop + Stand
• Mouse Mat
• Wireless Keyboard / Mouse (dongle hidden in mouse) - Or wired for some countries
• 4x AA batteries for the above peripherals
• Power Adapter + Cord
• HDMI Cable

While the keyboard and mouse feel really cheap, they work great and the keyboard is extremely light. I wouldn’t expect to get much battery life out of the mouse. There’s a switch under the mouse to turn it off when not in use.

Ports & Layout

On the front: Power button, Recessed USB port, covered with a flap. Card reader, Headphone and Microphone jacks. e-SATA port.

On the top: Air vent and another USB port.

On the back: 4x USB ports, Ethernet, HDMI, VGA ports. Kensington lock and Power plug.

On the bottom: A screw (may be covered with a warranty seal) to access the innards.

Here are some size comparisons with the Acer Aspire Revo (pen, A4 paper, netbook power brick)

This is what the Acer Aspire Revo looks like with wires plugged in.

The power button glows white when turned on:

Upgradability

To access the goodies inside, you’ll need to locate and undo the screw at the base of the Aspire Revo.

On the inside you can upgrade the 2.5” hard drive, RAM (two slots, up to 4GB RAM) and a PCI-e slot which is occupied with the Wi-Fi card.

Wi-Fi card:

Two RAM slots (4GB Max)

Fan and heatsink over the ION chipset, fan is removable:

For those who want to know how to open up the Acer Aspire Revo:

1080P HD Videos

Thanks to the NVidia ION graphics on board, the Aspire Revo excels at playing any sort of 1080P HD video you throw at it. I tested out alot of videos but not once did I encounter none that wouldn’t play.

You can’t play 1080P HD video out of the box, you will need to install the right software. There are plenty of options: Cyberlink PowerDVD, DivX Labs MKV on Windows 7 or MPC-HC.

I quickly removed Vista and installed Windows 7. I needed to install both MPC-HC and DivX Labs MKV Preview, because I couldn’t get sound working on the latest verison on some videos.

Check out how 1080P HD Video plays like on the Acer Aspire Revo below:

Games

Don’t expect to play the latest 3D games on the Acer Aspire Revo or even 3D games from several years back. Very old 3D games and 2D games should work fine.

First I tried out Half Life 2. Even with at a resolution of 1280 x 1024 and the lowest settings for everything, frame rates were not smooth at all. Playable, almost. I certainly didn’t enjoy the speed compared to what I get on my desktop. I can’t give you frame rates because I can’t access the console (seems to be a problem on non-US keyboards of which mine is).

Next I tried COD4, and at 1280 x 720, with lowest settings for everything and some turned off, it became playable, but the frame rates were not smooth.

Both games looked very poor on the big screen at such a low resolution and low graphic settings.

Media Player Usage

The Acer Aspire Revo excels as a media player. Thanks to it’s small size, low noise, wireless peripherals and HDMI port.

You can stand it vertically with the stand or lay it flat just as easily. Since the Aspire Revo is just a PC it’s much easier to connect to your existing network that most other dedicated media players. You can easily connect via Wi-Fi or Ethernet.

With that you can easily grab videos from other computers on your network or just download them directly from your Revo.

Also, you can expect much better compatibility than you would get with a dedicated media player. I’ve used several dedicated media players and they occasionally choke on videos not encoded properly and stop playing.

Note, that you will need to correct the overscan if you use the Aspire Revo as a media player. Go into NVidia options and you can easily rescale the screen smaller to fit the screen.

Desktop Usage

The Aspire Revo performs just the same as any Atom N270 / N280 powered netbook on the market. If you have experience with any such netbooks then you will know what to expect.

Web browsing, office related activities (word documents, spreadsheets etc), listening to music, iTunes, watching videos and playing old games all work very nicely on the Aspire Revo. Installing Windows 7 over Vista can greatly improve the speed of the desktop.

The Aspire Revo does not handle the latest 3D games very well, or even games from several years back because the bottleneck is the slow Atom N230 processor inside. I wouldn’t want to use the Aspire Revo to do photoshop work with large images or do 3D rendering on it.

The lack of noise (below) and the small form factor also make this a great low-profile / small space choice for a desktop.

My thoughts about the Acer Aspire One Revo as a desktop previously, on video:

Noise

I’ve read around on the internet and seen some people complain about the fan noise. I can hear a soft whirring of air coming out of the top but it’s barely noticeable. The only other time I hear a peep out of the Aspire Revo is when you tun it on and there’s a second or two when a short burst of air is heard coming out of the top. I did not hear the hard drive at all.

Issues

Here are some minor issues I had with the Acer Aspire Revo. None of them were deal-killers though and I found ways to solve some of them.

Slow Wi-Fi

Copying over large Blu-ray sized videos takes several hours (at least) over Wi-Fi. You need to plan ahead on these occasions or use a wired connection.

Limited Audio Options

The Aspire Revo only has a headphone out jack that doesn’t carry SPDIF and a HDMI port. Trying to connect to your PC Card on your computer or to your amplifier can be tricky. Luckily I was able to connect my Aspire Revo to my Onkyo amplifier in the following fashion: Aspire Revo -> [HDMI Cable] -> HDTV -> [Optical Cable] -> Onkyo Amp.

No DVI Video Out

No DVI out means it could be tricky connecting to your large sized LCD monitor. Many don’t come with HDMI ports.

If you use the HDMI to connect to a LCD Monitor, you’ll be stuck with trying to use the headphone jack. Connecting the Aspire Revo via HDMI to my 16:10 24” LCD Monitor failed to work, I was stuck with VGA out which doesn’t give the best quality on such a high resolution display. Also HDMI is limited to 16:9 ratio displays which only my HDTV is going to give me an undistorted image.

Warranty Seal Protecting Insides

I imagine this would depend on where you buy the Aspire Revo. Here in Japan, there is a warranty sticker covering the bottom of the Aspire Revo. I haven’t actually read if it voids warranty, but I’m pretty sure it does just like with other recent Acer netbooks released here.

Wobbly Stand

While the stand looks cool, it doesn’t hold the Aspire Revo on top of it very solidly. The Aspire Revo easily wobbles side to side just touching the nettop lightly. Furthermore, any slight pressure applied to the top or front of the machine can easily dislodge the nettop from the stand. To insert anything on the Aspire Revo, you’ll need to use both hands.

Source: Netbooked.net