Acer rolls out the Aspire X1200 home theater-friendly mini PC for $450

Always wanted to install a little computer into your home theater but none of the available options are cutting it, what with all the giant media files and HD displays you're rolling? Enter Acer's Aspire X1200, which for $450 includes on-board NVIDIA GeForce 8200 graphics, an AMD Athlon X2 2850e processor, and HDMI port. Acer promises full 7.1-channel audio support as well as the guts to work with H.264, VC1, and MPEG2 and the spunk to output 1080P. The whole shebang comes in a rack-friendly 10.6 x 4.0 x 14.4-inch enclosure. Of course, prices scale up to $699 based on your needs -- the latter coming with a 22-inch display -- but the base price will get you a 320GB SATA II drive and the start of what could be a sweet little home theater PC.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 8th 2008 5:53PM]

Thanks for the answer... To bad it doesnt have SPDIF out, well the DIY HTPC will have to do, it wont be so small & stylish (using the THERMALTAKE DH101 VF7000BNS casing, ITS HUGE), but it will be made with love :) LOL

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 28th 2008 12:53PM]

have you gotten around to putting in a blu-ray drive yet? i'm am still on the fence about buying one of these guys because im not quite sure that it can handle blu-ray playback smoothly

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 28th 2008 12:09PM]

I plan on doing the same (Blu Ray) install soon. Have you found any that you like?

Thanks - Chris

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 8th 2008 1:24PM]

This actually looks pretty good. Minimalistic design, good specs, well-priced. Looks like Acer is finally gettings its act straight.

[chodaboy19 Posted Jul 8th 2008 1:21PM]

What is the db spec for noise?

It's a nice HTPC as long as it's quiet.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 8th 2008 1:38PM]

if you are on about dvr-ms there is no DRM there at all - i have been using MCE since it's early 2005 days and now with Vista 64 and DRM is NO issue

Thats not what Microsoft says..

http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0080/t.14189.html

[lozenp Posted Jul 8th 2008 1:48PM]

For this to be a true HTPC I think it needs a TV Tuner card in it, and with only 1/2 height PCI express slots you might have to go with an external adapter for it. Would have been awesome if they included a tuner in it.

[daniel80 Posted Jul 8th 2008 2:18PM]

It lacks SPDIF connection.

[David Wagner Posted Jul 8th 2008 2:45PM]

well it has HDMI, which will output digital sound, so unless your audio receiver doesn't do HDMI, you shouldn't need SPDIF

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 8th 2008 3:57PM]

I think one of those headphone jacks can be used for SPDIF with a mini-to-rca jack. Usually the orange colored one.

[keithwwalker Posted Jul 8th 2008 3:16PM]

missing BluRay and an HDTV tuner...

[greatslack Posted Jul 8th 2008 3:33PM]

I think they need to price it a little lower than that, if they want to compete with the subsidized prices of the Xbox 360 and PS3.

[jimr1234567890 Posted Jul 8th 2008 4:02PM]

Where is the input for the dual TV tuner?
With a machine like I think it should be a DVR by second nature.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 8th 2008 4:25PM]

Can someone confirm if it has SPDIF optical out (regular or thru mini-to-rca jack, doesnt matter)? I am currently building a HTPC, but if it turns out that this little bugger has SPDIF, I am deffinitly buying him =)

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 8th 2008 4:41PM]

Does it have VIVO via the hdmi port?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 8th 2008 4:49PM]

FYI:
System has 2 on-board SATA connectors, 1 for the DVD and 1 for the hard drive.

Power supply is 220 Watts

It will support the Hauppauge Win-TV HVR-1250 card

[El Duderino Posted Jul 8th 2008 5:26PM]

"Acer rolls out the Aspire X1200 home theater-friendly mini PC for $499"

Fix the headline; there are no models priced at $499. Only $4-4-9, $4-5-9 and $6-9-9.

This actually looks pretty good for the price. It'd even make a good compact desktop, in addition to a HTPC. Take out the useless 56K modem (to reduce power consumption), slap in a low-profile, dedicated PCI-E 2.0 gfx card and it's even better.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 8th 2008 5:29PM]

The version of this computer sold at Best Buy has an extremely loud fan and after about two days on the shelf collected a solid amount of dust on the exterior case ventilation (the side blowing heat off the processor). The specs are okay, but the first three displays put up had dead motherboards, cpus, or output video. 4th time's a charm.

[d00b Posted Jul 8th 2008 7:01PM]

@jboschetto & Anon: Thanks for the follow-up info.

@Balls: The hardware may decode VC1/H.264, but MCE won't handle "unauthorized" container formats like MKVs or even IFO/VOB. Considering how long it took MS to license DivX, I wouldn't hold my breath.

@Alastar: Thanks for the hands-on report. I think I'll wait on a lower power solution for HTPC use, something like the EEEBox but w/ G45 chipset to handle HD decode, or perhaps a Puma/780G solution.

[Zclyh3 Posted Jul 8th 2008 9:05PM]

No optical out?

And worst of all, no Blu-ray/HD-DVD/DVD burner? Come on don't make me laugh.

For $160 more, you can pop in an LG Blu-ray/HD-DVD/DVD+R DL drive to make it a way better machine.

Acer clearly needs to put future machines in the hands of beta testers to make sure they dont' leave anything out.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2008 11:09AM]

I picked one of these up last night. The system seems pretty quiet.

Curiously the back panel has a label for SPDIF and an indent in the case but it is filled in with plastic. So it looks like they dropped it.

The speaker config shows, curiously, two outputs over HDMI, analog, and also shows what should be a coaxial SPDIF. So, as I theorized earlier, we should be able to get coax SPDIF out of one of the mini jacks. I am planning to go 6-channel analog, but I will try the SPDIF route to see if it works for those here who are interested.

My plan is to throw a BD-ROM/HD-DVD drive in this thing (already on the way from NewEgg). The Cyberlink Blu-Ray advisor gave me a grey on the nVidia 8200, but nVidia claims the 8200 will do Blu-Ray/HD-DVD.

The toughest video I have is the Top Gear Polar Special 1080 H.264, and VLC is having problems with it (it isn't CPU bound, however, probably the video card/drivers). I played some 1080 MPEGs fine.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 28th 2008 12:55PM]

Have you installed a blu-ray drive yet and tried video playback? im very anxious to buy one of these systems and try it out, but i'd like to confirm that its capable of smooth blu-ray video playback before buying.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 27th 2008 8:27AM]

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

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 21st 2008 7:21PM]

Easy for you all to bash a PC that you don't own. Well, I do own one. For the price, it has turned out to be one fine HTPC. Add a Blue-Ray drive and a tuner card, and this thing's bee's knees!

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 31st 2008 4:17PM]

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Acer Restore CD for XP and VISTA

http://img407.imageshack.us/my.php?image=skmbtc35108103112200xy5.jpg

email me if you like for a copy

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[(Unverified) Posted Sep 9th 2009 5:07PM]

It's a really bad deal because if anything goes wrong they don't have customer service - the bring bad customer support to a new art form. You will have a $300 paper weight.