Acer’s new x1200 series Mini-PCs have just been announced, and they rather sparkle as cheap and fully-featured HTPCs. The x1200 is about the same size as a hard cover book, with an AMD Dual Core processor, 4GB of RAM and a Nvidia GeForce 8200 integrated graphic chipset. It also comes with two PCIe slots, nine USB ports spread out over the front and back (and supplemented with a token Firewire port), front and back audio jacks, a 14-in-1 card reader, and up to 500GB in hard drive space. There’ s even an eSATA port. Prices start at $450 at the low end and go up to $700 on the high end.
While Joel looks into furnishing his new jet-age inspired bedroom, I’m looking at moving into my first unfurnished apartment… and reclining on orange crates and elaborate beer bottle furniture for a few months to fund an impressive home theater set-up. This looks like exactly what I want, with the exception of the Windows Vista operating system… unavoidable, of course, but I’d prefer OS X, if only for Plex. It’s a shame the Mac Mini has been gimped for so long: the market they are going for is clearly grandmas over students, and the Apple TV is supposed to and (failing to) appeal to the home theater set, but there’s clearly a gap in Apple’s line that can only be satisfactorily filled right now by going to other companies, even for the most die-hard Apple enthusiast.
Acer Aspire X1200 Series Mini-PCs Stuff HDMI Jack, 9 USB Ports and More in a Tiny Space [Gizmodo]
Picked it up at Circuit City for 450. Looks good and fits right in on the entertainment center, just connected the power cord, ethernet, HDMI, and its good to go. Hardly requires any fan cooling, it has the low watt processor and a huge heat sink. I leave it on all day pulling torrents and I am unable to notice any heat build up. I can’t hear this running; if I turn off everything else in the room and put my ear up to it, I can barely hear the HDD whirring (fan I can’t hear at all). I am going to replace Vista when I get around to it.
I LOVE IT !!!!!!!!
The new BIOS A3 (re-released) fixes both problems with the Audio and ethernet.
I bought one at Best Buy yesterday. Great little pc. The only thing I had to do was replace the fan. It made a loud whining noise. I replaced it with a 12.95 antec blue led 3-speed 80 mm fan. It looks awesome because the hard drive led and power led are blue also. Also the volume control for the speakers has a blue light !
It is very quiet, cannot not even tell it is running. I set the 3-speed fan on the slowest setting and it still runs cool.
I have the output going to my 55 inch hdtv via the hdmi port. It plays all video types flawlessly ! Never used over 50% CPU ! Also the disk drive is very fast ! Got 130 m/s using hdtune !
Thanks Acer, I might buy another one to replace an older pc that I use once in awhile.
Acer broke the HDMI audio with a BIOS update. I believe systems are now shipped this new BIOS, thus no functioning HDMI audio out of the box. Acer support is unaware of this problem and thus there is no fix, nor any sign that this issue has been elevated to engineering. If you’re thinking about using this as a Home Theater PC (HTPC), you’ll need more than an HDMI cable.
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic109876.html
This honestly looks like a pretty good deal for the computer you wind up with, but I do have to ask: Is the integrated graphics chipset essentially equivalent to its separate video card namesake?
If so, I think I have a friend I’ll tell about this. They need a new, affordable computer with a setup that can handle gaming.
(if anyone knows of a better alternative that fits that bill, though, I’d love you for pointing me to it)
Fortunately there’s plenty of decent Linux-based operating systems out there now to choose from; running Ubuntu with XBMC or MythTV on this would simply fly.
I don’t dislike Apple, but I have very little respect for their vendor lock-in tactics when in this day and age there is simply no excuse to keep OS X restricted to a very limited range of hardware.
– Defective power button –
Last week I bought an Acer x1200 at BestBuy for a nonprofit where I manage the PCs. The first time I pushed the power button (really a power panel) it bent in and became stuck. The PC wouldn’t turn on.
I went back to BestBuy and exchanged it for another x1200.
Then it happened again with the replacement. This time the power button worked twice, but it failed the third time I used the PC.
I’ve installed a lot of PCs and have never seen anything like this before. I was very gentle with both computers.
Now I’ve got to go back to BestBuy for a refund. This has turned me off to Acer!
By this way Acer solves both of the problem like the multi media audio system as well as internet problem…….
http://www.electrocomputerwarehouse.com
This just reminds me of how ancient my video card is.
S’a cute, sleek little machine.
Will these suffer from the Nvdia 8M chip overheating problem?