Right off I would like to say that the Acer Aspire X3200 is a great little HTPS (Home Theatre PC) and very good value for money. Now for the techno – babble: The Acer Aspire X3200 is powered by a Tri – Core processer, instead of the Dual – Core processers found in the earlier and most there HTPC’s in this price range. It is considerably smaller and has a very basic design. Far from making it dull and not very interesting, this feature allows it too suitably blend with most environments, sitting comfortably next to your DVD player and stereo right there in your living room. It also has a HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) port which allows you to connect directly into your HDTV (High Definition TV).This appears to be an added extra which is absent in the other HTPC’s of its range, as has the eSATA port. This port allows you to connect an eSATA external Drive directly to the computer. It also has a Multi – Media Card Reader on the front and 9 USB ports. The computer also has 3GB of RAM and a 320GB Hard Drive. All in all this HTPC is very good value for money However: As the Acer Aspire X3200 is so small it has virtually no room for any upgrades. It has no extra hard drive space, no room for extra RAM, and the internal structure is impractical, for example, the DVD drive obscures the RAM chips meaning that to upgrade or replace RAM chips you will need to remove the DVD drive too. It does have a PCI express slot, but due to the case size you can only fit a half size card in it. It does not have a pre – fitted WiFi card and no PCI slots to add one, meaning you have to use a dongle (USB WiFi port). It also has no infrared Sensor or remote, meaning you have to buy a media remote and infrared sensor to make this a true media PC. Last but not least, as the Acer has a tri – core not a dual – core chip, it has a lower clock speed than others in its range. So applications like I Tunes and Photoshop, which are generally media type programs, May stutter, pause or even crash as they tend to work most efficiently on clock speed and memory rather than processing power.
Conclusion:
Basically if you want an all round, High specification, low cost machine then this could be your new baby, but if you need the all flashing, all go –go dancing media dream PC, then dream on!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: A DESIGN CLASSIC AND NOT AS BULKY AS SOME BASE UNITS, free upgraDE TO WINDOWS 7 Disadvantages: No wireless networking card, doesn't hold the smaller type cds, too many wires.
johnnyhaupt 07.08.2009 (17.09.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Acer Aspire X3200
Advantages: Fast for media, HDMI Port And 7.1 Channel Audio Support and its easy on the eyes. Disadvantages: Small cramped case, not good for upgrading after being outdated, no good for games.
Danmanc 29.08.2009 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Acer Aspire X3200
Advantages: A DESIGN CLASSIC AND NOT AS BULKY AS SOME BASE UNITS, free upgraDE TO WINDOWS 7 Disadvantages: No wireless networking card, doesn't hold the smaller type cds, too many wires.
johnnyhaupt 07.08.2009 (17.09.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Acer Aspire X3200
Advantages: Fast for media, HDMI Port And 7.1 Channel Audio Support and its easy on the eyes. Disadvantages: Small cramped case, not good for upgrading after being outdated, no good for games.
Danmanc 29.08.2009 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Acer Aspire X3200
Jul 30th, 2009
very helpful by (11%):
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