Acer Aspire Revo Desktops w/Intel Atom Processors & Nvidia ION Graphics $237.34 - $29

[购物指南]

There are lots of options available if you're building a media center these days -- home theatre PCs (HTPCs), "net tops", and media playback only devices like the WDTV to name a few. It's always been a delicate balance between size, capabilities, power, and price. The introduction of Nvidia ION graphics spices things up though, as it enables "net top" sized/priced products to handle high definition media playback. With that said, there are some deals from a few retailers on new Acer Revo PCs, which as you might suspect, feature ION graphics.

• NCIX.com has the Acer AR1600 Revo (Intel Atom N230, 1GB RAM, 160GB HD, NVIDIA ION, HDMI, eSATA, 802.11N, Linux Boot for $249.98 with free ground shipping.
• OnHop.ca has the same Acer AR1600 Revo as above for $237.34. You do have to pay shipping, though.
• BestBuy.ca has the Acer Aspire Revo Desktop (Intel Atom Dual-Core 330, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, NVIDIA ION, HDMI, eSATA, 802.11N, Windows 7 Home Premium for $299.99 with free shipping. This can be found for the same price at FutureShop.ca as well.

These Revos are certainly powerful enough to serve as basic computers for email and surfing, but we think the big value is their ability to play HD content. They're small, not too expensive, and have sufficient power to play 1080p content smoothly -- that covers a lot of what we'd like HTPCs to be able to do.

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