I have a love/hate relationship with Acer. It seems like for every Acer product there'll be some aspects that I love, but then they give me a reason to just utterly hate them for the product. And I'm not talking about nothing's perfect kind of hate here, usually it's because their actions show that they somehow just didn't give it their all when making the product. And about a month ago I once again renewed this relationship with Acer by getting this.

The Acer Aspire Revo desktop PC. YES.. for those of you keeping count at home, I got yet ANOTHER entry level desktop PC. Before we begin this tale of love and hatred, let me show you the box first. This is an important moment because 1. I can't remember if I ever shown a box shot before. 2. It sets the feeling and expectations as I went through the product.

The Revo's box is about the size of a large shoebox. So it's small enough for a kid to carry, and yet.. it's a WHOLE WORKING PC! It was literally being sold like an appliance instead of a PC in All It, they just stacked about a dozen boxes forming a display tower usually used for selling mice, or keyboards, never a PC. On the box they showed cute little of how small it is, and where to put it. Beside your large 40" TV, in a small corner of your office table, hanging BEHIND your LCD TV. I was really intrigued with the idea of mounting it behind a TV so I asked the sales clerk, "Is the LCD mounting kit included?" NOPE. "How much does it cost then?" No idea.. no stock. Nice going Acer, advertise a feature, don't sell the accesory. HATE+

So I picked up a box headed home, snuck past she-who-would-question-my-purchase-to-no-end and opened up the box. The first thing I saw when I opened the box was a piece of paper with the title Mount your nettop to a monitor. Oh nice! Maybe the clerk was wrong, maybe the kit did come in the box. LOVE+. I rummaged through the contents of the box.. Revo unit... wireless keyboard.. wireless mouse.. mousepad... speakers... BUT NO MOUNTING KIT!!! Why the hell did Acer include the instructions IF THE MOUNTING KIT WASN'T INCLUDED IN THE BOX!?!?!?!? HATE+++++

After my little fit of anger I inspected the Revo unit.

Like other nettops, it has a pretty clean front face. Just a memory card slot, audio jacks, and an e-SATA port? I know that SATA performance is great but how many people would benefit from a FRONT e-SATA port right now? I wondered to myself why it wasn't a USB port instead?

Nothing interesting in the back, 4 USB ports, LAN port (the unit has a built in wireless radio as well), HDMI port, video port, power socket. The top of the unit shows the main reason I bought it.

Yes I always wanted a USB port on the top of my computers! OF COURSE NOT! The Nvidia ION sticker indicates that the Nividia ION chipset sits inside the system and I've been hearing a lot of things about how well it can decode 1080P video and is actually powerful enough to make an ATOM based computer play BlueRay discs. So I wanted to see how well that worked. And the Acer Revo was the first ION powered system I could get my hands on. LOVE+

Stuck on one of the sides of the Revo was the usual regulatory warnings, Windows Product Key and stuff.

It seems like someone in Acer knew that this giant label would ruined the aesthetics of the unit and thus used those quickie remove glues on it and indicates to the user that the label can be removed via a handy tab on the side.

I was about the rip off the label when I took a careful look at the label and realized... that the Windows Product Key was ON THE LABEL as well. Initially I thought the product key sat in it's own quadrant and wouldn't be removed along with the label. But IT IS! Tear off the label and you tear off the product key! I know how important the key is, but the Revo's target market isn't a tech savy person like me, it's being sold like an appliance (which isn't really the best way to sell a computer I must add) so the buyer might just tear it right off without giving nary a thought about what he's doing. I wonder if it's a Microsoft requirement that the product key be stuck to the unit though? But even if it was that would have been plenty of other ways to do it, the product key could be on a CARD that's stuck on the label. Anything would be better as long as the user isn't given the idea that the product key can be trashed after unwrapping! HATE+

After shaking my head about the revelation of the label I slid the wireless keyboard out of it's bubble wrap bag.

It's has the separated keys design that seems to be popular right now (what was it called again?? Chillect?? Chillact? Like the old gum I think) Seems adequate as a keyboard you'd use from the couch, but of course.. without any form of mouse control you can't exactly use it as a couch keyboard. Along with the keyboard a sheet of paper fell out of the bag. It was a list of keyboard shortcuts and instructions, I was able to toss it aside when I noticed an instructional diagram with the words "Press and hold for one second allow the keyboard to bind with dongle". OK.. I thought, like any other wireless keyboard I have to connect the thing to the dongle... right! So the connect button is underneath the keyboard like all other wireless keyboards. But where's the dongle? It must be under the mouse like most other wireless mice! So I pulled the mouse out of it's bubble wrap bag too.

It's a standard 2 button, 1 wheel wireless mouse, nothing interesting about it. I flipped it over and saw this.

I was surprised that not only did I not see a dongle, there was no sign of a connect button too! I  opened the battery compartment to see if the connect button was hidden inside.

NOTHING!!! I did something I haven't done in a long time while setting up a prepackaged system.... I thumbed through the quickstart guide... Ah yes.. section titled Connect your USB Mouse, all I have to do is plug the USB cable into the system and I'm done.... HATE+++ Same for keyboard... HATE+++ How can you give such misleading instructions when a USB mouse and keyboard IS NOT INCLUDED! Won't you just confuse the users? As I was scratching my head over where the dongle could be located, I noticed something amiss about the mouse's battery compartment. Hey... this thing comes off!

Oh.. that weird disjointed block in the battery compartment was the dongle! Bravo Acer, giving a compact wireless dongle mouse as a pack in! LOVE+ Not making it apparent that it is the dongle. HATE+ Not making the dongle with a handle so it was easy to remove. HATE+ Once I found the dongle, it immediately occurred to me where I was supposed to put it.

Why the top USB port? It's a top facing USB port, if I didn't plug it with anything it'd turn into a dust well! Now that I found out how to connect the mouse & keyboard, I plugged in the power and display. And it's time to turn it on and see how did Acer plan the user's initial experience. My index finger touched the power button located in the upper left corner of the Revo...

Nothing happened... I touched it again... nothing happened.. I checked the power.. it's ok. I press it a bit harder... the unit nearly topples over because it's a tall, thin monolith supported by a small, light base. I decided to press the power button by 'PINCHING' the system. Power button lights up, unit turns on. What just happened? Instead of using a touch sensitive switch, Acer choose to use a physical switch. Wouldn't be a problem usually but the Revo is too light to allow someone to just push the power button like any other computer, this could have EASILY been solved either by using a button with a lighter spring, or... just use a touch sensitive switch like what the Playstation 3 uses. HATE+

The Revo boots into the typical Windows Vista 1st Boot Up screen, I click a few dialogs then I'm greeted with just a blank screen. There's no activity cursor, no indication on screen that it's setting up the user's desktop. NOTHING! I'm not sure wheter it's Microsoft's fault for dropping the ball on this init setup screen, or Acer for messing up the process but something just occured to me at that point. The Revo has NO HARD DISK ACTIVITY LIGHT! Treated with a screen which didn't indicate progress the only thing left for me to do would be to check out if the hard disk was moving. But of course... since there's no hard disk light... HATE++

I just left the Revo on it's own for a few minutes until it finished what it was doing and booted up to the Windows desktop. That's when I realized where the Revo would really drop the ball on casual users, as well as other Nettops I guess. Marketed as a companion to your HDTV, the first thing someone would want to do is to watch a BlueRay movie via the included PowerDVD program... But the Revo DOESN'T HAVE AN OPTICAL DRVIE! So what CAN a casual user do?? Not a lot until they get a USB DVD or BlueRay drive.

Speaking of external drives, one last nitpick about the physical aspects of the Revo. There's one more hidden USB port at the corner of the Revo.

I say hidden because I didn't notice it at first. Not because I didn't see the large USB logo on it, but because I didn't see any flap or anything to pull out the plug. Who would make a rubber plug that you could only open if you had extra long finger nails, or a screw driver handy? I proceeded to wedge a screw driver into the plug and yanked the cover out.

HATE+++

The Revo contains an Intel Atom N230 processor, which would die before being able to decode any 1080 videos you throw at it. In order to watch high resolution videos, you need a program that can take advantage of the NVidia ION chipset to assist in the video decoding. Such as PowerDVD 9. But that isn't able to handle the more exotic video containers out there. What we need to turn the Revo from an embarassing set piece into a capable video player (for supported video streams) is a DirectShow video codec that's able to take advantage of the ION platform. What we need is CoreAVC! A H.264 video codec that can utilize the ION to decode supported H.264 streams. It makes a LOT of difference! And is worth the asking price if you want to use the Revo to watch HD videos.

So... while I love the design of the Revo, and I love the fact that it's carrying a pretty capable GPU in it which allows it to do wonders for a device at this price with the right software installed. I really HATE a lot of decisions which Acer made for the system.

Would I recommend other people to get this same Revo unit I have? Well... do you want a low cost, slim line, general work horse computer? Do you feel like having a H.264 video player for a low price? Can you afford RM200 more than what I paid for it? Than the answer is an ABSOLUTE NO!

Because for RM200 more, you can now get the NEW AND IMPROVED Acer Revo, first of all it comes with an Intel Atom N330 CPU, which is a Dual Core, Hyper Threaded ATOM. Which offers much more raw power at your disposal. It's also 64bit which means you can put a 64bit OS on it to make good use of the 4GB RAM that's included on board (mine came with only 2GB RAM) AND... The LCD Mounting Kit is INCLUDED IN THE BOX! So you can mount the Revo behind your LCD TV as you dreamed of. After which you'll realize that.. THERE'S NO WAY TO TURN ON THE THING IF IT'S BEHIND YOUR TV! I tried pushing buttons on the mouse.. tried the keyboard... nope... there's no way to turn on the Revo remotely without pressing the power button. Hmmmm... which in itself is quite hard to press so wouldn't it mean that whenever you turn on a rear mounted Revo there's a potential for you to topple your LCD TV?

Interesting thought, would love to experiment it further. But then it's not like I have a LCD Mounting Kit! :P