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Announced just a little over a month ago, the Acer AspireRevo is going to be one of the hottest nettops around for quite a while, what with it being the world’s first one rocking NVIDIA Ion graphics on board and all. This small nettop is going to be Acer’s bet against the likes of the Asus EeeBOX, offering advanced graphics and multimedia features that make it a great home theater PC. I kept this in mind while testing the Acer AspireRevo earlier at an Acer event, trying to see if it really delivered on what Acer is promising on paper. Well, what I’ve gathered is very positive so far, that I think I can safely say even Asus won’t be able to offer any competition.

VESA-mounted on the back of a monitor, you’ll be able to see one corner of the Acer AspireRevo sticking out–the corner with its power button, to be exact. At the very top, there’s a lone USB port, which I’ve been told would be perfect for the use of USB webcams and other USB accessories that need to face the user (a small fan, maybe). It sticks out like a sore thumb, but it’s not really that annoying. If it weren’t for this, anyone would be liable to think the AspireRevo nettop is actually an all-in-one PC.

At the back, the VESA-mounted Acer AspireRevo doesn’t look so bad. It just sits there, quietly. The annoyance here, it seems, is that the age-old problem of cable management. It’s a mess that just might be enough to drive some people insane. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to keep the AspireRevo nettop under a desk with its diminutive size, so I don’t think having regular-length desktop cables makes any sense at all. But then again, that’s just me, and maybe some of the prospective AspireRevo nettop users are accustomed to seeing spaghetti rolling around the back of their monitors.

Here we see where the spaghetti cables are coming from: the VGA-out as it connects to the monitor, and USB ports for the USB keyboard and mouse. If you think that’s messy, remember that the AspireRevo also has an HDMI port, and Ethernet jack, which means that this side of the nettop is only going to get more crowded. As long as you are in front of the monitor, though, this shouldn’t bother you.

A closer look at the ports of the Acer AspireRevo shows us just where exactly which port goes. There’s also a security lock slot placed at the bottom corner, for those times when you don’t want to mount the nettop on the back of a monitor and just want to have it sitting around above your desk.

These are the bundled accessories that will come with every Acer AspireRevo when it comes out in the market. A USB keyboard, USB mouse, and USB speakers. They are white, and to be honest, look like toys. I know the AspireRevo is supposed to be small, much like a toy that you would just set aside and all, but the appearance of these accessories are totally going in the wrong direction. Upon usage, I’ve found that they really live up to their appearances. That said, it shouldn’t be hard to find a replacement keyboard and mouse combo plus a set of speakers that will match your taste.

The Acer AspireRevo nettop I tested came with Windows Vista Home Premium pre-installed. With 2GB of RAM, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor and NVIDIA Ion graphics, it got a score of 3.0 on the Windows Experience Index. Performance-wise, the AspireRevo didn’t fail. 1080p videos weren’t available at the time of testing, but the videos I did play ran smoothly, without any lag or hiccups. I should be able to use the Acer AspireRevo as a dedicated Home Theater PC in a couple of weeks when I get a chance to review it fully, but until then, we’ll just have to rely on benchmarks online to see how it performs.So far, the Acer AspireRevo seems to be able to deliver on its promises. Watch out for our full review in a couple of weeks to see our final verdict on Atom + Ion on a nettop. For now, check out a few more photos in our gallery below.

[via  eeepc.net]