Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H (PT.SCL05.004) Nettop

If you have a need for a small, quiet, low power computer, the Acer Aspire Revo 1600 may be what you're looking for.  The Revo is tiny.  The computer case is only about 7x7x1-1/4 inches and has an oval base that lets you stand the unit on its side like a bookend.  The Revo comes with a wired laser mouse, a small white keyboard with Chiclet sized keys, and an external power supply like those used on laptop computers.  The Revo doesn't have a CD or DVD drive.  There is no monitor, but the Revo comes with both an HDMI and a VGA port.  In addition to the monitor ports, there are six USB ports, four in the back, one on top, and one that is concealed under a white rubber cover on the top front corner of the computer.  There's a front facing storage media port that can accept, SD, Sony Memory Stick, and XD media.  It also has a 10/100/1GB ethernet port, an eSATA expansion port, and headphone and microphone jacks.  Acer really put a lot of ports on such a small computer.  The computer comes loaded with Window XP, 1 GB of RAM, and a 160 GB hard drive.  The processor is a single core Intel 230 Atom.  The box it comes in is about the size of a shoe box, and has only a minimal start-up instructions, a couple of safety bulletins, and a pathetic instruction sheet for the function keystrokes on the keyboard.

Internally, the Acer Aspire Revo has an open SO-DIMM slot, and an open PCI-Express slot, so you can expand the memory, or possibly add a Wi-Fi card.

I bought the Acer Revo to be used as a dedicated computer to use with a MagicJack Voice over IP telephone adapter.  The MagicJack plugs into an internet connected computer's USB port, and uses the Internet to make telephone calls.  The downside of the MagicJack is that the computer it's connected to really needs to be on 24 hours a day.  The Acer Revo seemed to be a good candidate for MagicJack duty.  After connecting the MagicJack to the Revo, I had telephone service, and I used a "Kill-a-Watt" meter to determine that the Revo draws about twenty-five watts of power, so it's a pretty thrifty computer to operate.

The Revo comes loaded with a lot of bloatware, programs that are not too useful, or are used as opportunities for software vendors to try to sell you upgrades to their software packages.  The Revo came with a trial version of McAfee virus protection, Carbonite and Lock-it backup software, twenty or more games, Microsoft Works, and a trial version of Microsoft Office.  It took most of an evening to remove these parasitic programs.  Instead, I replaced McAfee with the free version of AVG anti-virus software.

I hooked my Aspire Revo 1600 up to my LCD HD television using a single HDMI cable.  The connection was easy, but initially, there wasn't any sound on the connection.  I went on the Internet to see how to get sound on the HDMI connection, and there were plenty of other posts from users with similar problems.  The answer was easy, but Acer should have made it easier.  In that tiny pile of papers that came with the computer, was an easily overlooked slip of paper that explained that explained that sound on the HDMI port required using a different sound driver.  It was easy to fix, but if the slip of paper had been made to stand out with red print or pink paper, it would have saved me time.  The paper looked like some useless warning not to use the computer in the shower.

The Aspire Revo's keyboard, while small, is pretty good, but it looks cheap.  It's white and has Chiclet keys that will remind users of an Apple keyboard.  Fortunately, the keys are full sized and easy to use.  The key action isn't bad, but the tilt of the keybard isn't adjustable.  The Aspire Revo's mouse uses a red laser or an LED for tracking, but like the keyboard, it looks cheap, and it gets the job done.  The plastic on the mouse case is so thin that the red LED glows through the mouse like a jack 'o' lantern in the dark.

The Acer Revo is a be good choice for users who are looking for a small computer to use with their home theater system to be able to stream HD video, or listen to Pandora.  It is also suitable for users like me who have need for a Windows based computer to run a single application such as the Magic Jack.  The computer would also be a good one to put in a kitchen or bedroom for browsing the Internet.  I played a DVD with an external USB connected DVD drive, and it worked just fine, but to be honest, for watching DVD's you would probably be ahead to spend an extra $100 or so and buy a laptop with a built-in DVD and display.