Review Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H
Typically our challenges with the emergent Nettop category have been that real budget PCs cost just a little bit more and provide a dramatic performance uptick, and similarly priced Netbooks offer equivalent performance with the added benefit of portability. The Aspire Revo 1600′s price tag alone answers those issues. As a traditional computer, the Aspire Revo 1600 is worth considering for use as a cloud-computing terminal or a PC for the kids to bang around on. Acer and Nvidia also want you to think of this system as a living-room PC, but that’s a harder sell. A $199 Xbox 360 can perform the same digital-media tasks, yet also offers an optical drive and powerful gaming capability this Acer system can’t hope to match.
Due to its low price, the Aspire Revo 1600 is easier to describe by the features it lacks. With no wireless networking adapter, you have to add one via a USB 2.0 port, or hard wire the system to your home network. The Revo also has no optical drive. The roadblock to disc-based software installation probably isn’t the worst decision Acer could have made. Full-sized applications like games and digital-media-editing programs would quickly overwhelm the Revo’s 160GB hard drive and its 1.6GHz Intel Atom N230 CPU. Acer also offers a 320GB model with higher specs for $329.
The lack of wireless networking also ruins the illusion that this compact desktop will somehow improve the aesthetics of your home because of its size. You still need to connect at least a wireless networking adapter, and the bundled wired mouse and keyboard add further tethered clutter. Acer has made the Revo 1600 VESA-mount compatible, which means that you can mount in on the back of any VESA-compatible LCD, effectively hiding the system out of sight. We suspect few of you will go to that trouble, but the option may have some appeal for those looking to maximize desk space.
| Acer Aspire Revo 1600 | eMachines ET1810-03 | |
| Price | $199 | $369 |
| CPU | 1.6GHz Intel Atom 230 | 2.2GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core E2210 |
| Memory | 1GB 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM | 3GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM |
| Graphics | 128MB (shared) Nvidia Ion LE integrated graphics chip | 256MB (shared) Nvidia GeForce 7050 integrated graphics chip |
| Hard drives | 160GB, 5,400 rpm hard drive | 320GB, 7,200 rpm |
| Optical drive | NA | dual-layer DVD burner |
| Networking | Gigabit Ethernet | 10/100 Ethernet; 56k modem |
| Operating system | Windows XP Home SP3 | Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (32-bit) |
As the most affordable desktop we’ve ever reviewed, the Aspire Revo 1600 has no ideal comparison among other systems in our catalog. We’ve opted for the next-least-expensive PC we’ve covered, the eMachines ET1810-03 midtower, but we could just as easily have chosen Nettop all-in-ones from Asus, Averatec, or eMachines. Unlike the Revo 1600, the eMachines ET1810-03 lets you remove its side panel to make upgrades, and its full-fledged dual-core Pentium chip and larger hard drive give it a bit more flexibility out of the box. You’d be right to point out that the single-core, Intel Atom 230-based Aspire Revo 1600 and its small 160GB hard drive are liabilities next to the eMachines hardware, price differences not withstanding. But given that the Revo 1600 runs Windows XP Home, its 1GB of RAM isn’t a major liability. As you’ll see below, the eMachines system and its 3GB of RAM might have been smarter to forgo Vista for XP instead.
