Netbook Reviews

The very first Nvidia Ion based product to hit the market was the Acer Aspire Revo nettop.

Featuring the Ion chipset gives the Aspire Revo very impressive graphics, enabling it to easily decode and playback HD media content, including Full HD / 1080p videos and blu-ray.

The current Acer Aspire Revo models available all feature the Intel Atom N230 1.6GHz single core CPU, which is plenty powerful enough for most users, and can playback 1080p, as long as the video player support hardware decoding.

Unfortunately, some applications that do not support hardware decoding, and have problems with playback, for example HD flash videos, due to the low powered CPU.

We have heard from Acer that a dual-core Atom 330 (2 x 1.6 GHz) model will be available in June at the very latest! This is very exciting news for many of us, who are very interested by the Aspire Revo, but put off by the weak CPU, and want something with a little bit more power.

As soon as this model is available, it’s as good as mine!

Update: Newegg are now selling the dual core Revo with Windows 7 Home Premium for $329!

Update: Gateway have announced the Gateway QX2800 nettop, which is a re-badged Aspire Revo with a dual core Atom 330 CPU!

Update 2 (July 27th): The Dual Core Aspire Revo will come with 4GB of RAM, with a 320GB hard rive (€349) and a 500GB hard drive for €399. It should be available in a few weeks!