The Acer Aspire Revo nettops have been some of the most popular nettops on the market for the last year.  With even the cheapest version (at $199) has killer features, a tiny footprint,  and NVIDIA ION graphics for pumping out HD video, they make great tiny pcs or multimedia devices.  So  it should come as no surprise that Acer taht Acer introduced the new Revo family today. The three new products include:

• Acer Revo multimedia center – An all-in-one media center PC with a wireless remote called the RevoPad which serves double-duty as a keyboard and a touchpad with multitouch support
• Acer RevoView media player – Basically a hard drive enclosure that connects to your TV with HD video support (plus a remote control and support for USB storage devices)
• Acer RevoCenter home storage appliance – Networked attached storage device for storing your media and streaming it over a home network

No word on pricing or availability yet, but the current Acer Aspire Revo nettop with Windows XP and NVIDIA ION LE is still great value for $209 shipped.

Blogee was able to get access to some of the new Revos, so there’s a ton more pictures after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

These days, more and more people are giving up their cable tv connection and are watching television content online – via Hulu.com, Netflix or by downloading tv from Bittorrent sites.  If you’re like me, this has started to limit your tv watching to your laptop screen.  But, with a small investment and half a day, you can build a dedicated, silent, home theater PC to connect to your flat screen tv.  This post on Lifehacker covers how to use the open-source XBMC software to run on a $199 Acer Aspire Revo to build a comprehensive home theater PC.

What You’ll Need:

- Acer AspireRevo: This $200 nettop ships with 1GB of RAM, an Intel Atom 230 processor, 160GB
- XBMC Live: This is a Live CD version of XBMC that boots directly into XBMC and has a tiny footprint.  You can find the download specifically set up for these NVIDIA ION machines on this page, you can grab the direct download here, or download via BitTorrent here.
- A thumb drive: It doesn’t have to be huge, but this 8gb Kingston Datatraveler is cheap ($15.95) and will be useful for other projects as well.
- An IR receiver/Windows Media Center remote: This isn’t strictly necessary, but if you want to control your shiny new XBMC via remote control, you’ll need some sort of supported remote with a USB receiver. I got this Mediagate remote for about $30 and it works great. (Incidentally, it also works like a charm with XBMC as soon as you plug it in.)

Read the full post here on Lifehacker how to create XBMC HTPC Nettop. Read the rest of this entry »

Acer Aspire Revo Ion Nettop

It looks like Acer’s exciting new Aspire Revo Ion based nettop is shipping in Canada.  We had a first look at the Revo back in April, and subsequently had a peek under the hood as well.

Here are the specs of the Revo that is shipping from NCIX.com

- Intel Atom N330 1600 MHz Processor
- 160 GB Serial ATA II HDD
- 2GB DDR2 RAM
- NVIDIA ION Graphics Chipset with (VGA D-sub) and HDMI
- Wireless 802.11b/g, Ethernet LAN 10/100
- Four-in-one card reader supporting Secure Digital, Memory Stick, MultiMediaCard (MMC)
- 6x USB2.0 Ports, eSATA, Microphone Jack, Headphone Jack

See the video after the break.
Read the rest of this entry »

The insides of the Acer AspireRevo

The Acer AspireRevo is the hottest Nettop around right now.  Read on for a full review.
Read the rest of this entry »

Acer Aspire Revo Nettop

Yet again, the rumors were (almost) true and even a day earlier than anticipated, Acer is launching what amounts to NVIDIA’s first Ion-based nettop .

The AspireRevo debuts today alongside a plethora of other Acer wares, boasting a 1.6GHz Intel Atom 230 processor, up to 4GB of RAM, up to 250GB of HDD space, a 4-in-1 card reader, HDMI / VGA outputs, gigabit Ethernet, six USB 2.0 sockets, audio in / out, Windows Vista Home Premium / Basic and a svelte black and white enclosure that measures just 7.1- x 7.1- x 1.2-inches. The built-in Ion GPU means that this bugger is completely capable of handling 1080p (and thus, Blu-ray) content, DirectX 10 and even mildly demanding games such as Call of Duty 4 .

Check the full release just past the break.

Read the rest of this entry »