Acer Aspire T180

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ACER ASPIRE T180 REVIEW
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Having had my new PC for a little over two weeks now, here are my experiences now I have put the PC through its paces.


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PRICE:
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As always, it pays to shop around. I found that prices varied tremendously particularly those on-line.

Before buying ...
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Acer have produced a model here that is well thought out in terms of usability.
What I have found to be very good is how everything is easily accessible from the front of the machine.

Although most desktop PC's have USB and audio ports mounted on the front, they are usually hidden behind a door or tacky little flap that tends to break off after very little usage.
Another ... more

I have visited Ciao several times before for sourcing information as I have found the reviews on products very useful from a user rather than a sales pitch point of view. Having said that I have never took the time to delve any further into the site.

Having bought my new PC, I thought I would have a look to see if anyone else had the same experience as me.
To my amazement, no one had actually written a review on this model. Consequently I have decided to take the plunge, sign up and hopefully give something back to the Ciao site by giving my views.
I realise this first bit is a bit off track and apologise to all concerned, but I just wanted to give a plug to the Ciao site and say thanks to all Ciao users for your helpful information in the past .
As this is my first review, any pointers or tips would be very much appreciated. I now place myself in the hands of my critics.

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ACER ASPIRE T180 REVIEW
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Having had my new PC for a little over two weeks now, here are my experiences now I have put the PC through its paces.

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PRICE:
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As always, it pays to shop around. I found that prices varied tremendously particularly those on-line.

Before buying on-line always do the rounds of the high street shops. Although the likes of PC-World, Comet etc are usually in a league of their own when it comes to pricing, there are some good buys to be had, especially ex-displays. The other advantage of the high street is that you get to see and feel what you are buying before parting with your hard earned pennies.

When checking on-line prices, my advice would be don't rely on the screen prices quoted on search sites such as price runner. Always go into the retailers web site and see what extras if any are being added to the quoted price.

Whilst some suppliers quote may look higher, this may be the actual price delivered. On the other hand, some suppliers quote a competitive price but then add VAT and delivery charges making the total much higher.

This particular model was advertised with prices ranging from £320 to £370. I picked mine up from an on-line company called shop magenta.com for £320 with delivery.

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GENERAL DESIGN / FUNCTIONALITY
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Acer have produced a model here that is well thought out in terms of usability.
What I have found to be very good is how everything is easily accessible from the front of the machine.

Although most desktop PC's have USB and audio ports mounted on the front, they are usually hidden behind a door or tacky little flap that tends to break off after very little usage.
Another annoying "norm" for most manufacturers is to put the front USB / headphone sockets at the bottom of the case. Although this may be practical if the main unit sits on top of the desk, it is a real pain in the proverbial if your PC fits under a desk. Consequently connecting external devices usually involves crawling on hands and knees to access the ports.

In contrast to this Acer have mounted all the ports including card readers in the centre of the case and not hidden behind any panels. I have found this to be a superb piece of design and makes the PC very user friendly regardless of whether it is sited above or below the desktop.

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OPERATING SYSTEM
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The PC comes pre-loaded with Microsoft windows Vista home Premium. This is a first for me, and I must say that whilst it's OK, personally if you take away the arty farty graphics, I can't see that it works any better than tried and trusted good old XP.

A good tip if you buy one of these is to take make a backup copy of the recovery disks supplied by Acer. Hopefully you will never need to use them, but it can be severely disappointing if your PC does ever crash, only to find that the recovery tools you thought you had won't work.

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CPU / PROCESSOR (the brains inside it)
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The main processor is an AMD dual core, 64 X2 4000+.

I have found this to be a very good and stable little tool. I tend to use Microsoft office a lot for work use. I use the 2007 Enterprise edition and have found that on some PC's there is somewhat of a delay when opening the programmes up (no thanks to Microsoft churning out ever more resources hungry software) In contrast to this my Acer opens up the programmes with lightning speed.

I have heard it said with other PC's that the Dual core comes into it's own when running multiple applications. Having used my Acer, I can confirm that this is definatly the case.
My particular good experience of this is when performing a scheduled virus scan. I know I really shouldn't, but on my old PC I used to frequently cancel virus scans as it slowed the PC and interfered with what ever else I wanted to get on with.
In total contrast the Dual Core on my Acer quite happily handles the scan whilst leaving me to get on with what I need to do.

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RAM / MEMORY
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I was a little bit surprised to find that Acer have used the standard DDR PC3200 RAM@ 400Mhz.

I had thought that the standard was now DDR-II. There is a plus and a minus side to this however. The minus is that the memory is not quite as powerful / fast as DDR-II (personally I haven't noticed any significant difference in practical use). On the plus side, if you want to upgrade the memory, PC3200 RAM is available dirt cheap through the likes of E-bay.

As standard the PC comes supplied with 1Gb, again a pleasant surprise as most PC's at this price level only come supplied with 512Mb. Should you wish to upgrade, the PC will take a maximum of 4GB.

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HARD DRIVE
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The PC is fitted with a 160Gb S-ATA drive.
Size wise, this is more than adequate I would say for 99.5% of people. There is great temptation to leave loads and loads of junk files on the hard drive simply because you don't have to worry about the space.
However the down side is when you come to either do a virus scan or defragment it. Remember the more stuff there is to look through or move, the longer it's going to take.

Performance of the drive I have found to be very good. Not only does it both read and write files quickly, but more importantly it is quiet when it is doing it.

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OPTICAL DRIVE
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The PC is fitted with a dual layer DVD +/- rewriter.

The advantage of dual layer over a standard DVD writer is that you record twice as much information onto a single disk (dual layer disks required). Presumably to drive down costs, some manufacturers are still fitting DVD ROM (playback only) as standard.

Personally although today DVD for storage is pretty much the norm and replacing CD, I do wonder if it's days are numbered. The reason for this is you can now get media cards the size of a postage stamp that will store the same amount of information.

I have used the writer to do a full back up of my PC, and used it for burning video files. Both these tasks were performed with amicable speed.

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GRAPHICS
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Firstly people should note that this PC is NOT supplied with a monitor.
Most suppliers always show a monitor with it, but this is merely a "serving suggestion". It is worth baring this in mind if you are working to a budget when purchasing a new PC.

Inside the PC is an integrated NVIDIA 128Mb Ge-force 6100, clock speed 425Mhz.

Personally massive graphics are not of any great importance to me as my PC is mainly used for either work related applications or internet browsing. However the kids have used the PC for gaming and have reported very good results.

I have used it for video playback and the results are good. When playing back DVD, there are no signs of the picture juddering I used to experience with my old PC.

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SOUND CARD
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Like the graphics, the sound card is integrated.
The sound card offers high definition 7.1 surround sound. This basically means that you can produce home cinema style sound through your PC.

Having not had this luxury before, I did invest in a 7.1 surround speaker system for the novelty aspect. I will say that when playing back DVD or even audio files the sound is very very good.
I now look back on my old tinny sounding PC speakers and think "What a load of CR@@ they were". Not that I'm nasty or selfish (honest!), but I have now palmed the old speakers off onto the kids.

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COMMUNICATIONS / PORTS
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As with virtually all PC's now it has a built in ethernet / LAN port allowing you to connect to either a router or broadband modem.

For anyone who has all sorts of different devices to connect to their PC, the case offers six USB ports 4 rear and 2 easily accessible front.

Other ports include 1 parallel printer port (does anyone still use one of these??) 1 serial port, 2 firewire ports (1 front 1 back), Headphone / Mic ports front, 6audio ports rear.

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EXTRAS
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As mentioned at the start the PC has a very accessible card reader mounted at the front of the case.
This is very useful if you use a digital camera. The reader is a versatile 9 in 1 device and accepts a wide range of different card formats.
This is very useful if like me you use a mobile phone for taking photo's. The card reader allows you to simply place the memory card directly into the front of the PC and view your pictures instantly. The big advantage of this is you don't have to spend time faffing around with data leads and the like.

Although I have never actually used firewire, I know certain camcorders such as JVC do use this interface. Again Acer have shown their thought in design by placing one of the two ports at the front of the case. This like the card reader this provides instant transfer of information without having to climb round the back of the PC.

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MY HUMBLE OPINION
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If you want a good reliable work horse with a few extras thrown in, then this is one to certainly bare in mind.
The price is good and the design / usability of the PC has been well thought out.
Advantages I have found plenty, disadvantages so far I have found none!

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FACTS AND FIGURES
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Dimentions:
Width 18.3 cm
Depth 45.5 cm
Height 37 cm

CPU:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (Dual Core 64bit)

RAM:
Maximum accepted -- 4 GB (max) PC2-3200, 400 MHz
Installed configuration: 2 x 512Mb (1 GB)

Hard drive:
1 x 160 GB - standard - Serial ATA-150

Storage Controller:
1 x 2 channel Serial ATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10

Optical drive:
DVD±RW (+R double layer)

Graphics controller:
Integrated NVIDIA GeForce 6100 128Mb

Audio controller:
Integrated 7.1 channel surround High Definition Audio

Interfaces:
6 x Hi-Speed USB - 4 PIN USB Type A ( 2 in front )
1 x parallel - IEEE 1284 (EPP/ECP) - 25 pin D-Sub (DB-25)
1 x serial - RS-232 - 9 pin D-Sub (DB-9)
1 x mouse - generic - 6 pin mini-DIN (PS/2 style)
1 x keyboard - generic - 6 pin mini-DIN (PS/2 style)
2 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ( 1 in front )
6 x audio
2 x microphone - input - mini-phone 3.5mm ( 1 in front )
2 x audio - line-out - mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm ( 1 in front )

Expansion slots:
2 ( 2 ) x PCI
1 ( 1 ) x PCI Express
1 ( 1 ) x PCI Express x1
1 ( 0 ) x processor

Networking:
Integrated network adaptor: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet

Card reader:
CompactFlash Card type I, CompactFlash Card type II, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, MultiMediaCard, SD Memory Card, SmartMedia Card, xD-Picture Card

Operating system:
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium

Software bundle:
Cyberlink PowerDVD , NTI CD-Maker Gold Edition, Adobe Acrobat Reader 6, Norton Antivirus

Warranty:
12 Months (return to base) 

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