Acer Aspire Revo R3600 in Desktop PCs

Everything else about the Revo works, and works well. For the most part it's no departure from previous nettops, but that graphics chip makes all the difference to usability. It's no gamer's paradise either, managing just 15fps in our least demanding Crysis test (run at 1,024 x 768 and with low settings enabled), but the ability to play back HD video on such a cheap device adds immense appeal.

If that media capability is important to you, the Acer is a better bet than HP's chunkier Compaq CQ2000UK-M, despite the latter's bundled monitor. We should also mention that Asus has launched its own take on Ion - a more powerful Eee Box with an ATI Radeon chip inside - but initial prices are higher than that of the Revo by around £50. This may change, and we'll re-evaluate when we have it to test, but right now the Acer Aspire Revo R3600 stands alone as the first nettop PC we'd genuinely consider buying for our living rooms.

Author: David Bayon