Acer flaunts first Ion-based nettop
Smaller than a breadbox
Acer today announced the first small, cheap desktop PC using Nvidia's new Ion graphics chipset.
Dubbed Acer's AspireRevo, the diminutive machine is being pitched as a device suitable for plugging into the family TV for watching videos, viewing pictures, or playing games.
The box combine a 1.6GHz single-core Intel Atom 230 processor with an integrated-graphics chipset that handles 1080p resolution video and a mildly demanding graphics workload such as games like Spore or Call of Duty 4.
AspireRevo sports up to 4GB of RAM, 250GB HDD capacity, HDMI/VGA outputs, gigabit Ethernet, 4-in-1 card reader, six USB 2.0 sockets, and audio in/out in an enclosure just 7.1 x 7.1 x 1.2 inches. The system will run either Windows Vista Home Premium or Basic, Nvidia said. It will later be loaded with Windows 7 when its made available.
Pricing wasn't disclosed — but it's rumored to start below $300. No word on when the AspireRevo is expected to ship either. ®
COMMENTS
@ the gaming whingers.
Two words:
1. Orisinal
2. Friv
Not all games are tech-hungry behemoths. *Your* games might be. But you are not everyone.
Won't be buying one
After the hardware "support" I've recently received from Acer, I won't be oging anywhere near them again - expensive, poor communications and very inflexible.
Give it a disc drive and I'm sold
Make it a BD drive and you've definitely got a sale.
As for a generic name, how about Weeboxes?
I wish you wouldn't do this to me...
I'd just decided on the Ion nettop from Novatech but this is much closer to what I'm looking for.
How long do we have to wait for this do you reckon?
MythTV?
I wonder how it would fare as a MythTV platform? I guess having to put an external optical drive on is less good, as is having to add an external video capture interface if you want to feed it from a cable TV box or similar. However, it it's that cheap and works well enough then I'm sure I'd cope.
