Acer Revo RL100-UR20P Desktop Computer
- AMD Athlon II Neo Dual-Core K325 1.3GHz processor
- 4GB DDR3 SDRAM
- 750GB 5400RPM SATA
- Integrated NVIDIA ION Graphics
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS
Acer Revo RL100-UR20P Home Media Center PC comes with these specs: AMD Athlon II Neo Dual-Core Processor K325, Windows 7 Home Premium, NVIDIA nForce 520 LE Chipset, 4096MB DDR3 Memory, 750GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive, 4X Blu-ray Disc/DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive, Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader, Dolby Home Theater V3 Audio Enhancement, High Definition Audio Support, 3 – USB 2.0, Acer Wireless Touchpad with Keyboard Function, 2.65 lbs. | 1.2 kg (system unit only), 1 Year Parts and Labor
List Price: $ 569.99
Price:
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ACER VX2110-US150W AMD SEMPRON PRO 150 1M L2 CACHE 2.9GHZ 3G DDR3 SDRAM 320G SATA 7200RPM New
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A purpose built machine that serves its purpose well,
The Acer Revo RL100-UR20P is great for playing blu-rays and web browsing. It is not nearly as proficient at running computation heavy games like modern first person shooters or converting large numbers of media files into different formats.
I wanted a pc to hook up to my receiver via hdmi that would allow me to watch blu-rays and consume media from the web on my tv. I was using a mid-range Samsung blu-ray player and my Lenovo Think Pad at the time. The Acer loads movies much faster than my old Samsung, is much quieter in operation, and has played blu-rays flawlessly. It streams NetFlix and Amazon content flawleslly as well. The Acer’s low power processor was actually a selling point to me for these functions because you don’t hear a fan winding up all the time as a fan is not necessary for the Acer’s processor. I was worried that the processor would not handle high def streaming very well, but those fears were quickly allayed.
The Acer’s pull out track pad/keyboard is actually pretty functional. It has multi-touch capability like ‘pinch to zoom’ and ‘two finger scrolling.’ A wireless full keyboard and mouse will always be more functional for a windows machine, but I find Acer’s peripheral to be more convenient for media consumption. I do use my standard wireless peripherals for playing games and split web browsing between the two options about 50/50.
I mentioned games, and the Acer will run Civilization V just find. It doesn’t load as quickly as I’d like, but once you are playing it does fine. I also play late 90′s and early 00′s titles like Panzer General 2 and Capitalism 2 from Good Old Games (.com) and they run great.
Finally the Acer is a homerun aesthetically. It is just a great looking machine that allowed me to remove a fair amount of clutter from my home theater set up.
I have been extremely pleased with my purchase and am comfortable giving it 5 stars for my limited wants. If I had bought it to play the latest Battlefront or Crisys I would give it 1 star and be cursing it to high heaven, but then I wouldn’t have done my due dilligence in the first place and it would be my mistake.
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|Oh so close ….,
I had high hopes for this machine. The design is slim, sleek and kinda cool. It was up and running on my LCD wide screen within minutes with no hassles at all. That said, it does not have sufficient power for streaming media without issues. Streams from netflix, abc, fox and cbs are all occasionally choppy and the CPU is maxing out at 100%. The windows experience rating is only 3.6, and the minute the OS wanders off to do some background work, the video starts skipping and freezing. Darn, right?
I’ve drilled this down to interference from other processes and I’m hoping that I can tweak it enough to tolerate, but users should be advised that it does not stream flawlessly as many of the professional reviews suggest when discussing the video performance. On the plus side: Blu-ray plays without a burp. The wifi connection is very fast, and windows 7 home premium works as expected.
Expect the usual crapware and ACER junk that overrides the windows programs. The track pad/removable keypad takes some getting used to, and you’ll need to brush up on hot keys. I’m also a little concerned about the flimsy-ness of the optical tray, but we’ll see.
Bottom line for me is that I’ll make it work for now, but if I can’t tweak it enough to get rid of the chop, I imagine in a year or so I’ll be looking for a machine that can handle streaming media without choking like this package does.
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