Customer Ratings & Reviews

I majored in Computer Science and work occasionally in the tech field. I actually got this for my father who is in his late 50's and is a beginner with computers, since the old computer of 5 years just died. I had been scouring websites to find the best deal for a casual user (but one who uses the internet a decent amount) while not spending too much. This was by far the best package deal for the price. Being a computer oriented person, I originally wanted to buy a monitor seperately and felt I could get a better deal that way. However at this price, the receipt shows 270 for the cpu and 115ish for the monitor. Either way you compare, you can't match those prices via coupon or pricematch except maybe some rare occasion. I'm not going to suggest this for the extreme gamer or programmer like myself, but it's definitely worth the price for those that surf the internet and want to watch movies on it. It works fast, has 3 gb RAM, and for the same configurations on hp and dell and even costco, it's been showing up as about 450-500 dollars for me. The one thing I think has been a blessing that I didn't know about was the small size of the cpu. I was imagining some hulking desktop but it's actually tiny! The size of 3 textbooks. I was thinking of putting it on the floor or under the table, but it actually fits completely inside a shelf for books, standing up the tall way! So that's even better as it keeps hidden and out of the way. Other perks include Labelflash, although I'm almost positive my father won't be using that. It has a dvd burner built in as well, and 5.1 channel audio on the front port, which is really nice to have, but again, probably only for the tech savvy or sound enthusiasts. It has 4 USB in the back and 5 on the front, including a 4-1 memory card reader on the front. One thing you will need to purchase yourself is a wireless card if you plan to use that. LAN is built in, as is a modem. However a wireless card (usb) should run about 40 if you buy at best buy, or ~20 online if you don't already have one. Two core processor is nice, but I haven't had much experience with AMD sempron to comment on that. It's not really a negative but something to mention. Set up took about 30 minutes but I'm OCD with technology and wanted to ensure everything was set up perfectly so my father doesn't keep calling me to 'fix' something on the computer. It really was very easy, I just spend a long time making sure there was optimal spacing for the wires. My parents think its perfect for them, nothing flashy and even has some higher end features that they'd never use. And I'm really happy about the price since I bought it :). I've already recommended to a few other people and they've had a great experience with it as well.

fyi - The back panel images are incorrect. The HDMI and standard VGA outputs are on the motherboard. There is not a DVI or S/PDIF output. The on-board HDMI output is video AND AUDIO, single cable hookup to a HDTV :-)) Hooked it up to a 47" LCD, 1080p, 1920 x 1080 - perfect picture ! Also there was NOT a "Warranty VOID if Removed" sticker on the case, like in the pictures, and some other higher end similar models. It has a 1x PCIe modem, and an empty 16x PCIe slot (the top one), a WD Blue 320GB 7200rpm drive, two dimm slots, both full (1GB + 2GB)

Could not be happier with this computer thus far. Have had it for about a month and for the price i'm shocked about how well it's performed. Keep in mind the keyboard, mouse, and speakers that came with it are useless, but I had those already from my old pc. Ran the hdmi out to my tv and it looks great when i'm watching videos. The only problem so far has been that sometimes when I turn it on it doesn't connect to the network. If I restart the system it works, no biggie. For the price of the computer i'm just waiting for something bad to happen, but so far so good.

I've been looking for a deal like this for over a year. I had a Toshiba Satelite Laptop that had some major problems and stopped working a while ago. I was borrowing a computer from a friend since November 08, and finally decided this was the best bang for the buck. A few issues I've heard about is the power supply tends to go on these slim-line systems in about 14 months, and it can overheat if you don't provide adequate air space (i.e. if you put it in a bookshelf surrounded by books). However, you can purchase a 2 year extended warranty from Acer's web site for $68. This will give you a total of 3 years including the allready provided 1 year manufacturer's warranty. You can buy a 2 year warranty from Best Buy, but it starts the same day of purchase, so you lose a year for the same price as Acer's warranty. However, it might be easier to go with Best Buys in store warranty since the Acer deal is mail in or finding a certified Acer repair tech locally where you can drop it off if need be. The tech at Best Buy mentioned if the power supply dies, the part is difficult to find, so they often just transfer your data and give you a brand new system. Not a bad deal for $68. The nice thing is, you have 14 days to decide which warranty to go with since Best Buy gives you 2 weeks to decide. Acer gives you 30 days from the date of purchase. I'm still looking into the best warranty deal and have 12 days to make up my mind. Anyway, this system rocks! If you're on a tight budget like me, you'll find this is an unbeatable deal!

The casing is cheap, that's one thing to take note of. Careful when pushing the buttons, I can see them easily breaking if this were used by a child that doesn't take care of things. I didn't bother with the mouse, speakers, or keyboard that came with the PC, they're all cheap and if you are used to a certain standard of comfort when typing and using a mouse, you'll want to replace those immediately. The size of the PC is great, it's small and fits nearly anywhere. It does run warmly, so I recommend keeping it in a well ventilated room with air conditioning if you live in a warm area. Set up is extremely quick. This has a fairly clean install of Vista (I'm not commenting on Vista itself). You won't need to uninstall that much, and there are only a couple startups you'll have to remove from msconfig. If you just need a computer to do word processing, internet, and entertainment, this is a great value. This is my first impression after a day of heavy use, and I'll make another review if any of this changes. If you want to try gaming, you'll have better luck with a different PC. For S&Gs I tried running a few games (Spore, HL2, a couple other recent games) and they did run fairly smoothly on the lowest settings.

I bought this pc primarily to watch streaming videos on my HDTV. Haven't connected to my TV yet, waiting for a cheap HD cable. I am using it with a LCD monitor right now. The DVD drive works fine. The only thing is that when I want to push in the opened drive after putting in the DVD, I am afraid of breaking it. It is a bit flimsy. I have not yet loaded it with other software and media, so am not sure of how it will perform. Right now I am satisfied with its quiet performance. Also, the hard drive is partitioned, with one 140 GB and another 141 GB. That's 281 GBs. I am not sure if the operating system should occupy the remaining 39 GBs, which seems awfully lot. The only issue I have right now is the free upgrade to Windows 7 that they are advertising. While trying to pre-order Windows 7 through Acer a message pops up - "this serial number is invalid or ineligible". Acer customer service seemed unsure/unaware of the issue. I was told to wait until October and try again. Other than that it seems to be good for the price I bought it at.

Like I said first one would not run anything. Had to retuurn it. Second one set everything up flawlessly seems to be working well. Bought this to replace a 9 year old Gateway that still works but was entirly too slowww.Keyboard and mouse not an issue since I already had wireless ones on the old Gateway I just use for this one. speakers seem ok, no problems.Hope it keeps working as well as my old Gateway gave me so many years of reliable service and Ive heard gateway and acer are the same company.But overall I am pleased with this computer.My kids are thrilled with it since they can play their games much better. Best Buys customer service was very helpful when I had to return first. Good buy ifyou need to replace an aging desktop and on a limited budget. I paid $1100 for the Gateway!!! Had 256 mg of ram 60 gb hardrive and 15 lcd!!

So far it's a great little machine. It has earned myself some bonus points with the wife. Her old one's hamster is not turning the wheel fast enough these days. With just a few minutes set up and a few more minutes to uninstall some bloat ware, and to turn off unneeded programs and services. It's a decent machine although I can not stand Windows Vista it might last for a month or so before it gets an overhaul of XP Pro. We also have an Acer laptop which has been a great joy. She will use this computer for her home based business, and photo editing. It's not a hardcore system but will meet most the requirements for standard and mild use. For the price it's hard to beat. $400 after taxes with a complete system and 20 inch lcd not bad. The bonus points for myself will be the payoff. ;)

I'll keep it short and sweet. This machine is being used as a home theater PC in my house. I purchased it to wean myself away from the continued high costs of cable television. I am running the Vista Media Center (nice app, but make sure to download and install the TV Pack for VMC if you want to tune ATSC channels with a TV Tuner or your guide data will be all wrong), and I put a blu-ray DVD player in it as well. This is where the small form factor is both a plus and a minus. It's a plus because the unit fits very nicely in my home theater environment, but it's a minus because the inside of this little machine is cramped. My LG blu-ray player BARELY fits! In any case, the only consistent problem I had was with the NVIDIA HDMI audio output. The NVIDIA newest drivers also gave me a world of trouble, so I stuck with the original ones that came with the machine. In general, the HDMI audio output would cause nice things like audio stuttering with any video source I would choose (web, DVD, etc.) It would have been nice to have SPDIF output on board, but I purchased a Turtle Beach device for $30 that provides that output for me and now my audio is flawless. I can't speak for the other speaker outputs because I didn't try them. Vista is Vista. If you don't want it to bug you every time you try to run a program, turn off the User Access Controls. They'll warn you the system isn't fully protected, but it gives you peace of mind when you actually utilize the OS. All in all, a nice little machine. Uninstall all of the bloat-ware, set Vista to run in High Performance mode and turn off indexing and it works out to be a great little HTPC. I would recommend it as a starting point for anyone trying to build one.

I love this computer. It is a great general purpose machine. It does everything needed for a general family room computer. The dual core processor and 3 gig of ram allows for speed and reliability....but still this is a general purpose, light multimedia machine. Gamers should look at other models. I was disappointed when i learned that Acer would not honor the free Windows 7 upgrade for this model. I waited to purchase this model in order to qualify, and at no point was it made clear to me that this model was not included in the offer..in fact there were signs all over the store (and on the website) that led me to believe the offer extended to this computer. I guess I could take it back, and replace it with a different computer. Windows 7 aside...this is a great computer.

First impression after buying this computer was that it seemed like it would be nice. It was small, had plenty of hookups for a variety of media, and the specs were nothing to shake a stick at considering the price (<$400). That was as long as the good feelings would last. There are plenty of things about this computer that just scream, "I was made at the cheapest cost possible!". The mouse and keyboard are ps/2 peripherals instead of USB, and they are very shoddy in construction. The computer does come with plenty of USB connections, so it could very easily work with any USB peripherals you might have lying around. If you're like me and do not, then you're looking at an extra cost here. The speakers are absolute junk. They have no sound to them whatsoever, and they make a popping noise when you're not listening to anything. These will have to be replaced when you buy this computer. Guaranteed. The power button is very poorly designed, and actually ended up getting stuck down twice in less than two weeks (had to dismantle the case to fix that, too). The CD/DVD player is vertical, which in and of itself isn't bad design. The poor design here is that if you want to lay the computer on it's side (something worth considering since its small size allows this casing to fit in many unique places), the fan ends ups on the bottom of the case. Obviously, that is not going to help circulation at all. Other issues also included an annoying, pre-installed partition that split the HD in half and "hid" 40 GB. Since the computer doesn't come with the OS software, removing that partition can be a bit tricky. Additionally, the computer - the whole thing, not just the browser - completely locked up twice in a less than two weeks while simply browsing ESPN.com. The price-to-spec ratio on this computer make it a tempting purchase, but I do believe it is very poorly made and recommend avoiding it for something built with better products and by a better designer. We returned ours and did just that.

This is the best desktop pc I have ever had. I had an emachines from a competitor that conked out on me after 2 weeks. I got my money back for it, saw this one, and am glad to have an Acer.This was my first exeprience with Vista, and this pc made it easy to use and understand. I would absolutely recommend this comuter to anyone looking to buy a new desktop.

This desktop was incredibly easy to set up and get online. My primary computer is a 6-year-old HP Pavilion, so I just wanted this for Vista & my Linux hobby. Vista is very impressive at first sight. I'm going to write another review of this computer in about two weeks, unless there's bad news in the meantime. I have a hunch this Acer desktop will be very reliable. By the way, I downloaded and ran CCleaner to clear the cache and registry of clutter, then deleted from the Startup Menu all the unnecessary Acer programs, so the machine boots up really fast. I deleted the McAfee antivirus clutter & intalled the free Avast antivirus program. I'm using the built-in Windows firewall because when I installed Zone Alarm I got knocked off the Internet for some reason. I intend to run Vista only for some time before I run Linux on this machine. Check back for my detailed review after using it for two weeks. For now, though, my first impression . . . it's a winner.

I purchased this for a second computer for my wife, and it will eventually double as a media center once I buy a TV card for it. I have been very pleased so far. Within a few minutes, I had it set up and was piping Hulu.com via HDMI to my flatscreen in another room. This is the most inexpensive system I have seen with an HDMI output. Nice small case size and keyboard and mouse are adequate. Speakers are also adequate (not great) but I will mainly use my home theater speakers. Windows Vista performance index is around 3.0 due to graphics limitations. This is fine for me, although serious gamers will probably want to upgrade this. Keep in mind the small case will require a low profile PCI-E card. Overall, it's a great deal and a great system!

after two weeks of having this computer got an error saying that windows cannot load device driver for this hardware. Driver may be corrupted or missing (code 39)

How can you beat it for the price? its perfect I bought this to hook it up directly to my 49 inch lcd. wow. I dont think you can find something out there for the money that has what this one does. I looked very hard. I have to say best buy had great customer service which these days is very important. thanks and godbless

hooks up easy and simple Once you delete all the trials and the junk in the start up You have a really Fast system

This computer is so reliable, and its so cheap which usually you get what you pay for, but in this case its reliable, quck, and so inexpensive especially with the economy the way it is, you feel like you got a steal. I have had this computer for a little over a month and still no complaints! LOVE IT! WOOOOO HOOOO!

Now if great computing power in a relatively small package at a very good price is what you're looking for this computer is it ! It has what everyone desires in a home and/or small business computer at a fantastic price.

Bought this computer on behalf of my parents. Unfortunately I waited for them to get back before I opened it(2 months). Worked the first night. Second day it did not power up. Acer told me to send it to Temple, Tx. I had to pay for shipping $40. Came back rather quickly , but it now how certain applications that constantly resize themselves upon opening(Explorer, Network and Sharing...) Have been in CONTINUOUS contact with Acer techs who haven't been able to solve the issue.