Acer’s Revo One is a small desktop computer that the company is positioning as a media hub. It supports up to an Intel Core i5 Broadwell processor, up to 6TB of storage, and features dual display support.
The Acer Revo One should be available in Europe in January or February for 269 Euros and up, but the company may bring the little media center PC to the United States later this year.
Acer is showing off the Revo One in Las Vegas during the week of CES.
I already knew that the computer was relatively small and relatively powerful. But I wasn’t really sure how small until I held it in my hands: somehow the promotional pictures I’d seen made it look bigger.
The computer has HDMI and Mini DisplayPort, two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, 802.11ac WiFi, and an SD card slot on top of the device.
Opening the case is as simple as pressing a button near the bottom with a pen and then lifting the entire top piece of plastic away to reveal the computer’s insides.
Inside, you’ll find two memory SODIMM slots and 3 drive bays. The system will come with a hard drive in the center bay (which is harder to access), but you can add one or two 2.5 inch hard drives or solid state drives on either side.
The Acer Revo One can support up to 6TB of storage overall, but more impressive than how much storage the system can handle is how easy it is to upgrade the storage.
It took me about 5 minutes to put in a $125 Samsung EVO 240GB drive into the Revo 3610. It’s not that difficult (11 screws). Make sure to use EaseUS Backup Free Edition or similar to copy all THREE partitions (1- hidden 10GB recovery partition which contains Windows, 2 – boot manager, 3 – main partition) beforehand (use a USB to SATA cable). Also remember to resize the main partition if you’re moving to a larger SSD. You can get 500GB SSDs for about $149 on sale (Canadian) and this will only go down in the months and years ahead.
* If you’re worried about the heat sink copper/thermal pad just use (free) HWINFO to monitor the GPU and CPU temperatures afterwards. You can also monitor the GPU memory use and determine if you want a BIOS setting of 256 or 512 KB for the graphics.
Bumping the RAM to 4GB (though only 3GB is available for system use) is very easy to do as is adjusting the video allocation size in the BIOS. Use task manager to ID what is running an remove any bloatware. ccleaner helps a-lot in cleaning the registry at the end.
Next up a free Windows 10 upgrade (for anyone using Windows 7/8) and adding 2-USB 3.0 ports to compliment my 6-USB 2.0 ports. I don’t use the built-in WiFi 802.11n (I use the ethernet port) so I will use the mini-PCI-e for the USB 3.0 ports – you can get other cards as well such as mini-PCI-E Samsung SSD or upgraded wireless cards (802.11ac & Bluetooth 4) though you’d have to test them. For best performance (if you are usg the WiFI) you can also add external 12″ antennas and connect them to the WiFi card to ensure the highest throughout — though (like with the USB 3.0 card) you will have to drill 1 hole in the case.
While the mini form factors do limit expansion options there are usually ways to get the most out of the system. My Acer Revo 3610 is still going strong – since 2009! Bootups are very quick and everything works well. Windows 10 will only make things better.
I also own an Acer i3 v3-571 laptop and 3 Acer tablets – they are also performing well. Acer builds some nice equipment at very affordable prices.
the concept sounds great, exactly like what i was looking for
sad thing that this rounded/shiny/white case combines everything ugly that was available, but i could live with that.
another small (32-64GB) SSD as mini-PCIe would be nice, so you could install the OS on that and don’t need spinning HDDs all the time, but it’s still pretty good even without that.
might be my next mediacenter/nas-combination
looks well designed
It’s interesting. I’m not sure. The shape is interesting but I don’t know where I’d put it in my living room exactly. My shelves, like many people still, are sized more for typical stereo gear or DVD players etc… This would be too tall I think.
Also I’m unclear about whether it has an OS or needs an OS or what exactly is the case there.
We have a couple revos (rl100) at work and they came with windows 7 home premium installed. Most likely this one will be running win 8.
And from the pictures, it looks to be around 6 inches tall. My shelves could probably fit it but it would probably look awkward, so most likely I’d just put it to the side or behind my TV.
We should finally call it the New PC! After all the “minis” that were a horror to upgrade (try replacing HDD in Acer Revo R3610 that I’m currently using) and alternative “normal size” tower/desktop PC that had to be soooo big to allow for easy upgrades (once or twice in their lifetime), there comes a new generation of moderately-to small sized upgradable (in terms of RAM and storage) devices and a new series of non-upgradable/”disposable” ultra-minis (like the MeeGo Pad T01).