Acer Aspire Revo R3600

This ‘net-top’ computer is about as powerful as most ‘netbook’ or mini-notebook computers. It’s not designed for gaming or high-powered tasks such as video editing, but for office and internet usage it’s ideal.

The computer uses an Intel Atom N230 processor, with 2GB of memory and a 160GB hard disk.

That is better than most netbooks, but only slightly, and it’s counterbalanced the power-hungry Windows Vista Home Premium operating system (as opposed to most netbooks which use the older Windows XP).

Overall though, performance was good – it was a little slow in our tests when we had several applications open, or when navigating the menus in a graphics-heavy program such as Windows Media Center, but we had no problems playing video or music files, or editing photos.

The Revo is a small device, only 18cm square, with a slight forward lean to its case design.

There is a small plastic stand in the box that allows it to stand upright, although ours tended to slip off this, and it can be mounted on the back of most monitors (as long as they are compatible with the Vesa mounting standard – a kit is supplied in the Revo’s box).

There are plenty of connections, and they are well arranged to suit both stand-up and mounted Revos: the top and front panels have two USB, eSata and sound sockets, while on the back has four more USB ports, HDMI and VGA output for screens and a network socket (it can also connect to wireless networks).

The supplied keyboard and mouse are both wired models and white to match the case of the computer.

The keyboard was small but surprisingly comfortable and the mouse, likewise small, was useable.

The Revo has a separate power supply so the computer itself is very quiet. There’s also a Nintendo Wii-style remote control.

The Acer Aspire Revo is a good choice as a media computer – it copes easily with sound and even high-definition video, and although Vista wouldn’t have been our first choice of operating system, it works well in practice.