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Amazing Home Theater with XBMC

Customer Rating:
I bought this machine a few months ago in the hope of setting up a home theater that can handle video streaming and Hulu, to replace our old PVR. Having the ability to watch Youtube and Netflix would have been a bonus. Unfortunately most of these applications could not take advantage of the hardware acceleration of the ION chipset, so my Acer Revo was idle for most of the past few months. For that I deduct a star.

Then XBMC Dharma (beta) came out, and everything changed. It comes with Youtube plugin, so I could stream both my files and Youtube videos. Because it comes with hardware acceleration, gone is the choppy video experience. My Acer Revo is connected to the big screen TV, and set up to be controlled by universal remote, so the experience is great. For that, I give it the remaining four stars.

The benefit of this machine is that it is capable of streaming multiple video format, and even upscale videos. It is whisper quiet, and runs cool, which is highly desirable for a home theater system. The downside is it does not have a DVD player, so you may have to buy an external one to make this system more well rounded.

Flash 10.1 made this a jewel

Customer Rating:
When I first got this to use as a HTPC, the performance was horrible. I use it mostly to stream from HULU.
Once Flash 10.1 was released however, it was like everything was fixed and now works great.

Shame on you, Acer

Customer Rating:
I purchased this netbook on 6-11-10. Over the 4th of July weekend I got the BSOD on start up and the motherboard is completely fried. I sent back to Acer for repairs (at my expense!) On the 7th day since mailing it and no word.

Let the buyer beware.

it is what it is

Customer Rating:
Tiny footprint, HDMI out, low power consumption, low price. This is a neat little unit. I've got a brace of little kvetches:

1) After using it about a month, I came across the backup utility. Run that it says, "It's very important to run this before you use your computer!" Well, now you tell me. Thanks for putting it in the startup folder! The reason for that is that they don't include any OS media. You're getting a bare-bones system. I don't know what you'd do with that backup anyway, as there's no drive on her anywhere. I haven't figured out if the MB will support a bootable mem stick, but it looks like you can boot off ethernet? I dunno how to do that, but I'm intrigued.

2) You can upgrade the membory, but there's no good way to open her. After some time online, the best instruction I got was basically "jam a butterknife in there and don't mess up the case." Well, I was able to do 1/2 of that.

All told the price:performance is very good.

Good. Could be better, if....

Customer Rating:
We purchased this computer for our daughter-in-law. She was looking for a low-profile system that was easy to set up and use. This computer is just that. It is easy to set up. Windows XP works the way you expect it too. She likes the fact that it is a low energy computer, that can be left on all the time.

The disappointing side- when you add the price of a disc drive and a monitor to this computer, you might just as well have purchased any other desktop. There is no savings in buying this. The keyboard is cramped, as well.

That said- it's a good computer that is suprisingly fast.

I would like to see either the price come down, or a monitor added to the package.