Acer Aspire Revo R3600 review

As the first Nvidia Ion system to reach retail, the pressure is on Acer’s Aspire Revo R3600 to prove nettop PCs can be useful for more than just web browsing. Previous Atom-based models, with their integrated graphics from Intel, have lacked the grunt to play back high definition video smoothly, but our initial look at a pre-production Ion sample earlier this year gave us hope that nettops could find a niche as low-cost media devices.

The good news is that Acer’s implementation is just as successful. It pairs an 1.6GHz Atom 230 with Nvidia’s GeForce 9400M graphics, resulting in a far more capable core specification than the Asus Eee Box. We ran a selection of 1080p videos and found that the graphics chip was more than capable of bearing the brunt of smooth decoding – provided you know how to enable GPU acceleration in your chosen software. It did drop a few frames here and there in crowded action scenes, but we only noticed when analysing footage statistically – to the naked eye our clips remained smooth.

We carried out our tests on a 22in TFT, but there’s no reason why you can’t connect this box an HD TV in the living room, as the Revo comes complete with an HDMI output to go with the usual VGA port. And this media strength goes some way to justifying the choice of Vista Home Premium over the more popular XP Home or XP Pro.

It does, however, have a bearing on performance elsewhere. In our 2D benchmarks the Revo’s Atom processor and 2GB of RAM scored lower than similar systems equipped with XP, and lower even than most current netbooks. An overall score of 0.29 rules out any tasks that require heavy multitasking.

The £217 exc VAT Vista version comes with a 160GB hard disk, an 802.11bg wireless module, Gigabit Ethernet and a 4-in-1 card reader on the front. There’s also an eSATA port for cutting-edge external storage, as well as six USB ports scattered variously around the rear, top and front of the main body.

While XP may not be offered as an alternative, Acer has created a Linux edition with a few notable specification alterations. With just 1GB of RAM and an 8GB SSD for storage, it becomes less of a media system and more of a traditional nettop-style web device, but the mouth-watering price of £130 exc VAT makes it an option worth considering very carefully.

Whichever package you choose, the rest of the Revo is the same. Its parallelogram shape is unusual but striking, and the dark blue side panels on a white main body make it far better looking than Asus’ sterile plastic approach. It can be attached easily to the back of any standard TFT with VESA mountings, which is just as well as we had major issues with the Revo’s stand. It’s an oval-shaped piece of plastic with a catch that slots into a matching groove on the bottom of the main body, but even clipped in place it wobbles precariously at the slightest nudge. Go to plug in a flash drive and you have to hold the Revo steady with the other hand just to line up the port.

But that’s the only real low point of the Revo’s design, which feels sturdy and more expensive than most nettops of this size. Acer couldn’t get us samples of the bundled keyboard and mouse for this review, but they’re small, portable and white; we can’t imagine they’d be of poor enough quality to change our opinion of the Revo. It’s worth bearing in mind, though, so you should try them for yourself in a high street store before you buy.
Everything else about the Revo works, and works well. For the most part it’s no departure from previous nettops, but that graphics chip makes all the difference to usability. It’s no gamer’s paradise either, managing just 15fps in our least demanding Crysis test (run at 1,024 x 768 and with low settings enabled), but the ability to play back HD video on such a cheap device adds immense appeal.

If that media capability is important to you, the Acer is a better bet than HP’s chunkier Compaq CQ2000UK-M, despite the latter’s bundled monitor. We should also mention that Asus has launched its own take on Ion – a more powerful Eee Box with an ATI Radeon chip inside – but initial prices are higher than that of the Revo by around £50. This may change, and we’ll re-evaluate when we have it to test, but right now the Acer Aspire Revo R3600 stands alone as the first nettop PC we’d genuinely consider buying for our living rooms.