Ar3610-U9012 Dt N330 1.60G 2Gb 160Gb Combo W7hp

One comment

1. 

   H. Lam on December 21, 2009 at 7:02 am

   The Acer Aspire Revo 3610 is a very small nettop computer that comes with 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium; a compact wireless keyboard (no number pad) and mouse; a small pair of USB speakers, six USB ports, single ports for Ethernet, HDMI, VGA, eSATA, and SPDIF; and a memory card reader. The rated capacity of the hard drive is 160 GB, but that comes out to 131 GB of space after NTFS formatting, of which 109 GB is available. There is little “crapware” on the computer other than Microsoft Office 2007 Trial, although the version of Microsoft Works on the computer is “advertisement-supported.” A 60-day subscription to McAfee Internet Security Suite is included with the computer. The Revo 3610 bundles some software meant to work with additional equipment — Nero 9 Essentials is meant to be used with an optical media drive (such as DVD+/- RW, etc.), and the Acer Backup Manager should be really used with an external hard drive. The wireless keyboard and mouse use two AAA batteries per device, and connect to the computer through a single USB receiver. The computer has four usable USB ports if you use both the keyboard / mouse and USB speakers.

   The “Window Experience Scores” of the computer are as follows:
   
   - Processor: 3.3
   
   - Memory: 4.5
   
   - Graphics: 4.2
   
   - Gaming Graphics: 5.2
   
   - Primary Hard Disk Transfer Rate 5.3

   I’m very pleased with my purchase of the Acer Aspire Revo 3610. Aside from processor speed, this computer compares fairly well with my primary desktop computer, which I purchased about a year-and-a-half ago at three times the price. Windows 7 on this computer boots quicker on this computer than does Windows Vista on my primary desktop computer. Out-of-box, my Aspire Revo did not work with my Wireless N network (though it connected with my Wireless G network), and Youtube videos were slightly choppy. However, driver updates from Windows Update immediately solved both problems. My computer now works on Wireless N and video playback is very smooth (I use Media Player Classic Home Cinema 64-bit Edition). Although I connected my computer to a spare monitor, I can see how easily the Aspire Revo 3610 computer can serve as an entry-level home theater PC. The computer has very small dimensions — it is thinner and shallower than a Nintendo Wii (but has a wider footprint due to its stand), uses very little power, and is whisper quiet. One may add an inexpensive ReadyBoost-capable USB flash drive to slightly improve performance for certain tasks.

   There is a lot of competition for the Acer Aspire Revo 3610 as of this writing in mid-December 2009. Notably, Dell’s entry-level version of its Inspiron Zino HD is $100 less than the price I paid for my Acer Aspire Revo 3610 a few weeks ago (Black Friday), has a larger hard drive than the Revo 3610 (250 GB versus 160 GB), and includes a DVD+/- RW drive which the Revo 3610 omits. The base-level Zino HD uses Windows Vista, and does not have a wireless keyboard or mouse. Although the Zino HD product line is more configurable than the Acer Aspire Revo 3610, the Revo 3610 provides a good out-of-box experience with a “no-brainer” purchase experience. This “no-brainer” purchase experience (provided you can purchase it at or less than retail, not sure why the Revo 3610 costs more on Amazon) is a value in itself — there’s no need to puzzle through online configurators or to search through E-Bay for a used computer.

   Acer’s Aspire Revo 3610 is a very good choice for a secondary computer for multimedia playback and light work.