Acer Aspire Revo Review

Using the Acer Aspire Revo Continued

While the fact that such a small system is able to play even some HD video is an impressive achievement, the manner in which the Revo does this is far from perfect. Windows Vista lacks the inbuilt hardware acceleration support that’s headed to Windows 7, so high definition video acceleration within Windows Media Centre is out of the question, forcing you to jump between the twin media players of PowerDVD9 and MPC, which hardly results in a sofa friendly interface.

While this will be tolerable for some we found the process a great deal more effort than when using a dedicated HD playback unit such as the Icybox IB-MP309HW-B, which played any HD file we threw straight out of the box without the need for a full mouse and keyboard. We’ve no argument with the fact that the Revo is technically able to play HD video; 1080p videos not only played smoothly but looked fantastic. It’s just actually getting the Revo to do so reliably and hassle free that’s the problem.

Gaming

Gaming is another aspect where the Revo’s GeForce 9400M chip gives it a clear advantage over competing nettops, and the difference is significant. Games that simple won’t run using Intel’s 945GC integrated graphics are now playable thanks to Ion's DirectX 10 support and performance in titles that did run on Intel integrated graphics is massively improved. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that Ion delivers anywhere near what for most bit-tech readers would count as a decent gaming experience; we’d call it “only just good enough.” You’ll need to run pretty much every game at 1,024 x 768 (or lower) with the bare minimum of detail settings to get close to a playable frame rate, and CPU dependant titles will still chug along like a Mississippi steamboat at low tide.


The Revo is admittedly a huge step up from Intel’s integrated graphics, but again, it's the experience that’s key here and it’s still far from what we’d call decent. Casual, hardware friendly titles like Plants vs Zombies or Peggle are of course great, but try venturing into more intense titles such as Team Fortress 2 and the Ion’s limitations close in like the walls of a Death Star trash compactor; Source engine based games other than the undemanding Portal aren’t even worth trying to run, and even aging titles like Battlefield 2, launched June 2005, need to be set to 1,024 x 768 with the lowest possible settings to be playable.

Again, it’s a case of yes, the Revo can play these games(an impressive feat for such a small device), but would you really want to play them when they look like a sackful of spanners that just fell out of the ugly tree? Remember, for the £250 price of the Revo you could also pick up an Xbox 360 Premium and a decent haul of games, and for just £20 more you could grab yourself a Blu-ray playing Playstation 3! Of course, neither of these consoles offers the kind of flexibility that a full PC can, but from a gaming bang for buck perspective the Revo doesn’t look too clever, especially as you'll be limited to Steam based games unless you add a USB optical drive.