Acer Revo 100 review

For once, this isn’t an Atom-based media centre; instead Acer has opted for the unusual combination of a 1.3GHz Athlon II Neo K325 processor, 2GB of DDR3 and Nvidia Ion 2 graphics. To a certain extent, it pays off: the Revo 100 scored 0.59 in our benchmarks, around 50% faster than most Atom PCs, and its two cores meant things didn’t slow down when we had a few applications open at once. It won’t have you playing Crysis, though.

Above the slot for the wireless touchpad sits a Blu-ray reader, and here the Nvidia Ion 2 graphics do the job they were chosen for: smoothly playing back our Full HD test movies. You needn’t worry about playback codecs, as Acer’s bundled Clear.fi software was made by CyberLink, and it has direct links to YouTube and Facebook too. We tried a selection of 1080p YouTube clips and they played back almost perfectly – only the occasional stutter in fast-moving scenes betrayed the Acer’s low power. As you’d expect, 720p clips ran flawlessly.

But that isn’t all the Clear.fi software is intended for: any DLNA-certified client on your network can be detected by the software, and its shared files can be played back on your TV. We tried it with two laptops, a NAS device and even an Android smartphone and, while playback quality varied, most worked as intended. You can plug a USB stick into the Revo 100 and copy the Clear.fi setup files to it; for the one laptop we couldn’t get working, it did the trick.

It has a few foibles, not least of which is that its own sharing options didn’t always alter the underlying Windows settings – on one PC we had to do it manually. And we had issues with internet security software interfering with the setup on one of the laptops. The interface could do with a bit of a polish, too, so don’t expect to be whizzing round it like you’d flick through your TV channels. All that said, it’s a relatively simple way of streaming video, photos and music to your TV and Hi-Fi.

If we could change one physical thing, we’d swap the current TV tuner for a Freeview HD-capable DVB-T2 model, but other than that the Acer Revo 100 is a likeable PC with a wonderfully innovate touch remote. It’s topped off by the fact that this Blu-ray-packing, media-streaming, gorgeous little PC will set you back only £458 exc VAT. If you don’t already have a PlayStation 3 or Blu-ray player, the Revo 100 is the ideal solution for a busy home.