Acer Aspire 6371R

...lucky enough to find that Acer were having a clearance of some of their floor stock - I spied the system on eBay where it had been listed by the auction agents for Acer. I managed to get the system for 365 pounds (a pound a day for a year!)

The system Specs are as follows:

Specifications:
Acer Aspire 6371R Intel Celeron 533 MHz
64 MB PC-100 SDRAM, 128 KB cache
1.44 MB FDD, 10.0 GB Ultra DMA/33 S.M.A.R.T. ...
...Challenge II, KidDesk Internet Safe, Acer Computer Explorer, PC-Cillin anti-virus, PC-Doctor, My Aspire guide, Aspire Time Machine system recovery, Aspire restore CD

Acer Aspire 77s 17" monitor
Aspire Stylish - 17" Screen with an Ultra-Fine 0.27 mm Dot Pitch
Patented iScreen On Screen Display 5 language (OSD) Technology
"i-key" Auto Calibration, Double Dynamic Focus (Two Lens) Design Provides ... more

My parents have been looking for a computer for sometime and asked me to keep and eye open for anything I thought might be suitable. Now I think you need to know that my parents are in their 60's and neither one has even handled a mouse or turned on a computer until the day this machine was delivered.

I was lucky enough to find that Acer were having a clearance of some of their floor stock - I spied the system on eBay where it had been listed by the auction agents for Acer. I managed to get the system for 365 pounds (a pound a day for a year!)

The system Specs are as follows:

Specifications:
Acer Aspire 6371R Intel Celeron 533 MHz
64 MB PC-100 SDRAM, 128 KB cache
1.44 MB FDD, 10.0 GB Ultra DMA/33 S.M.A.R.T. HDD
Internal 56K V.90 full duplex PnP fax/modem
Integrated UMA 8 MB SIS620 VGA graphics accelerator, Software MPEG playback
50 x Max CD-ROM, Integrated 3D SRS 32-bit PCI audio interface,
Altec Lansing speakers, Aspire Micro-Tower housing,
145W (surge) switching power supply, 4 bays & 3 slots
4 USB ports, 1 additional USB port on keyboard
USB Keyboard with volume control, sleep mode and Internet buttons,
ergonomic USB Wheel Mouse
Windows 98 Second Edition, Works 4.5, World Book Multimedia Encyclopaedia 99 CD, Hasbro Interactive Battleship, Hasbro 3 game CD: Sorry!, Yahtzee, Smart Games Challenge II, KidDesk Internet Safe, Acer Computer Explorer, PC-Cillin anti-virus, PC-Doctor, My Aspire guide, Aspire Time Machine system recovery, Aspire restore CD

Acer Aspire 77s 17" monitor
Aspire Stylish - 17" Screen with an Ultra-Fine 0.27 mm Dot Pitch
Patented iScreen On Screen Display 5 language (OSD) Technology
"i-key" Auto Calibration, Double Dynamic Focus (Two Lens) Design Provides Ultra Sharp Images by Increasing the focus more than 20% and the spot roundness more that 50%
High Refresh Rate for Flicker-Free Image, Ergonomic Design Integrates Tilt Swivel Base
CE, FCC, UL, CSA, DHHS, TUV, PTB, MPR II, DNSF, and TCO
'95 Compliant, Power Consumption Complies with EPA "Energy Star" Standard

As you can see it's a fairly complete beginners system and so far we are very happy with it. It has almost total USB functionality and for my parents as complete novices meant they could plug it all in with no fuss - and Plug'n'Play makes life very easy for those of us who started off on the days of using punch cards and paper tapes to boot machines!!

The system has some nice little features that I thought gimmicky to begin with but have learned to appreciate - a volume/mute control on the keyboard - has to be one of my favourite features. The Acer "Time Machine" is a great little software utility that allows you to restore an image of your system as it was prior to a nasty crash or corruption of files... the on board help and tutorial has kept mum quiet for days!!

A nice little suite of software - the games are nothing flash or sophisticated but have proven great little learning devices while my parents hone their mouse skills - mum's now a whiz at double-clicking, dragging and dropping and is starting to understand "minesweeper".

The 17" monitor was another bonus - I've seen similar monitors sell for more than half the amount I paid for this entire system.

As I said - for the money spent this is a delightful little system to get some absolute beginners started - mum's even talking about transferring her shop to an online business... so the Aspire has certainly Inspired her...

We've added an old Canon BJC4200 Colour Bubble Jet I had lying around and we're in the process of adding a cheap scanner and a web cam so mum can start loading images of her stock into her eBay listings. All in all this is a superb little system given the circumstances - it's not going to be everyone's idea of a perfect system - but for novices who'll never be power users its been a godsend. 

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