Acer AspireRevo: the Ion-infused unboxing

We just tore the packaging off of Acer's new AspireRevo nettop and dove into its Ion-powered goodness. The computer is in many ways a product of NVIDIA's designs, since the Ion-powered nettop reference platform has been a part of the Ion ecosystem for a while, and this Revo apple doesn't fall from the NVIDIA tree. Still, Acer had to go ahead and build the thing, and it's a pretty great package all-in-all. We're still in the preliminaries -- the HDMI didn't work out of the gate, but after swapping back and forth a few times with the VGA plug we were in business -- and we're playing with a potentially buggy "engineering sample," but hopefully we'll be able to pull together some cohesive impressions on the thing, and play a bit of Spore while we're at it. It's already obviously the fastest Atom-powered device we've played with, and while it still pretty much chokes on Hulu and that whole "multitasking" concept, we're pretty pleased so far.

Gallery: Acer Apire Revo: the Ion-infused unboxing

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[Cybertrash @ Apr 16th 2009 11:45AM]

It chokes on Hulu?
That's a shame, as I was considering getting one of these new Ion rigs for streaming video...

[strider_mt2k @ Apr 16th 2009 12:12PM]

That caught me too.
I'm willing to bet that it's because of the buggy sample they were given.

I can't see it having trouble with Hulu the way it's set up.

[AVG @ Apr 16th 2009 12:12PM]

Just hold off a bit until a vendor lets you customize it with a better Atom. This one sucks. Why have such a great chipset and not compliment it with an Atom 330? That would add, what, thirty cents to the price? I mean this is a $3,000 suit. COME ON.

[MikeSWelch @ Apr 16th 2009 12:15PM]

Like I'ld hold the elevator for an atom 330. COME ON

[bamboo @ Apr 16th 2009 12:37PM]

Bummed about the hulu comment as well. I want one of these so I can watch Hulu and Netflix on my TV.

[Rob @ Apr 16th 2009 12:39PM]

Hulu uses Flash, which has virtually no GPU acceleration, so it is *highly* dependent on your CPU.

[Fanfoot @ Apr 16th 2009 1:06PM]

Ditto. The only point to this for me was as a TV-side internet video playback box. Hulu, TV.com, ABC.com etc. If it can't do that well, then its of no use to me. What did they think the HDMI port was for? It doesn't have a blue ray drive... its too underpowered to be a proper desktop (where I likely want to do photo editing, video conversion, etc)... this was the obvious target.

Sorry, its dead to me.

[RyanTV @ Apr 16th 2009 1:07PM]

what the hell, it chokes on hulu but is supposed to be able to spit out 1080p video? that's a little suspect.

[TREX6662k5 @ Apr 16th 2009 1:41PM]

Wow Ryan you should actually read the comments.

A CUDA enabled Flash Player would be handy but it would be a while. Look at how long its taking them to get Flash on the iPhone.

[Alan Strangis @ Apr 16th 2009 2:05PM]

Question: If the whole browser was mapped onto a plane rendered by the Nvidia chipset, would that help flash video, or would the bottleneck occur before it's mapped into a 3D texture?

[ishism @ Apr 16th 2009 2:50PM]

so does that mean that current netbooks choke on hulu and youtube. I was planning on getting one.

[Jason @ Apr 16th 2009 3:22PM]

Hulu (and other things) would choke due to the decompression of the highly compressed video stream. I suspect audio is standardized enough that they're making use of something like mp3. But you never know.

Since the application doing the decompression is probably some recently made Flash code or something, it isn't written to be capable of sending the work to the graphics coprocessor (the Ion / Geforce 9400). Any computer would have trouble with this as it would need to have a CPU capable enough to do the work and the Ion platform does not change the CPU at all.

The exciting thing about Ion is that it comes with an eSata port. This would theoretically allow you to use an external hard drive filled with movies (including ripped BluRay data from your collection). Also, I'm not sure but you would probably be able to use an eSata BluRay drive in an enclosure. Atom netbooks so far do not have eSata or even an HDMI port, generally.

And, yes, the graphics coprocessor can be used to do things like reencode movies, play games, or whatever else they come up with.

It's a gateway product, in part, though NVidia is hugely stumbling on this one as it's coming out months too late to make much of a difference (since other manufacturers are announcing chipsets that can do just about as much as Ion).

[JerkyChew @ Apr 16th 2009 3:50PM]

@RyanTV, that's because there's no GPU acceleration for Flash content like there is for H.264. My MythTV frontend has the same issue.

[Ma2T @ Apr 16th 2009 4:55PM]

Does the Atom 330 (dual core) use the same socket as the current 230?

CPU upgrade potential?

[jon @ Apr 16th 2009 5:25PM]

People need to understand that the Ion platform lives on CUDA, anything that can't run on the GPU is going to run just as well, or poorly as it would on a standard netbook.

ishism, yes netbooks choke on hulu or netflix, youtube sd will work if you let it stream completely before starting the video.

Ma2t, not a socket at all, the chips are soldered to the board, at least that's my understanding.

[AVG @ Apr 16th 2009 5:38PM]

@Ma2T

I was thinking the same thing, but isn't the Atom soldered in? That is more work than I am willing to do. And I don't think the Atom is available individually to end users. And same socket doesn't always mean compatibility.

Ugh.

Just give us a 330 you bastards.

[xconan @ Apr 17th 2009 1:21AM]

e-mail flashplaYer complaINTS TO NV & adobe 2 resolve issue

[Eleazar @ Apr 17th 2009 1:59AM]

@Alan Strangis: I believe that could only give you _potencial_ smooth scrolling (of the whole page), flash would render its stuff using the cpu and then that would be redirected to the hardware acelerated rendered plane, so there wouldn't be any performance boost.

Its up to Flash to take advantage of the gpu to do the video related tasks. If they don't then ION gets an EPIC FAIL! :)


@TREX6662k5, jon: Since gpu accelerated video decoding and rendering is the feature we are willing to have here, and considering that it's something that's already available without using CUDA, I think you're misunderstanding what this tecnology is actually intended to do. CUDA is about letting some sort of "general computing" take advantage of the GPU to do things other than 3d and video related stuff.

[Atlantian @ Apr 17th 2009 2:10PM]

buggy sample they were given remember read

[Darby @ Apr 17th 2009 7:10PM]

Is Hulu GPU accelerated? I don't think it is... so it wouldn't benefit much, if at all, from the ION platform.

[Michgar @ Apr 16th 2009 11:48AM]

I believe that tilt angle of the Revo is patented by the Wii. Seriously guys, cut it out.

[meemeeseeku @ Apr 16th 2009 11:51AM]

It says Acer Apire. Just thought you should know.

[rallysquirrel @ Apr 16th 2009 11:48AM]

That is a shame

[rallysquirrel @ Apr 16th 2009 11:49AM]

It's a shame it won't play Hulu well. I was hoping this would do the trick.

[L @ Apr 16th 2009 12:02PM]

Well if Adobe ever got off its lazy ass and made the Flash player actually use the available graphics hardware for video playback and other stuff, I'm sure Hulu or other HD Flash videos would play just fine.

Silverlight 3 does it, so how hard can it be?

[fikhl @ Apr 16th 2009 12:34PM]

+1 L, sure Flash sucks. I think it'll be a lot better for everyone to move to Silverlight instead of that CPU intensive junk.I remember one of the Engadget posts had a silverlight video in it and I think it was 'way' superior even in quality...

BTW, current Atoms suck too. ULV FTW !!

[Neil @ Apr 16th 2009 11:49AM]

This little box could/should have been a great little media center box, but does sound like it is. I'd love to hear what you have to say about it playing back 720p and 1080p video files (maybe some of those wmv-hd videos Microsoft has on their site).

[NickNick @ Apr 16th 2009 11:50AM]

typoooo

[Steve @ Apr 16th 2009 11:51AM]

im guessing is that cause hulu is flash based streaming? and flash is very high CPU compared to things like VLC local programs at running videos?
(i know little about hulu so might be totally wrong)

[TREX6662k5 @ Apr 16th 2009 1:44PM]

VLC is still pretty high because its not hardware accelerated.

[The Heretic @ Apr 16th 2009 11:52AM]

Whats the point of having a 1080p functionality if it cant even play video? I DID want one of these, but not so much now.

ps: acer 'apire'?

[TREX6662k5 @ Apr 16th 2009 1:48PM]

You need to use a decoder that DXVA compatible. The decoder also has to be the first to the renderer which makes displaying embedded subtitles hard. MPC-HC is the only program that can do this. Next best thing is CoreAVC which uses CUDA, not as good as DXVA though.

[Namarrgon @ Jun 4th 2009 10:18PM]

I actually get significantly better results (using CoreAVC) from CUDA than from DXVA. Dropped the CPU usage on my old AthlonX2 HTPC from 80-90% down to 10-15%, and it works on a wider variety of formats too, in my experience.

[Celtique @ Apr 16th 2009 11:54AM]

The name should be Aspire...

[JohnnyRico @ Apr 16th 2009 11:54AM]

chokes on hulu how? full screen blown up hulu, or normal screened/picture hulu? What about 720p, or 1080p playback? I'm holding back building a HD-htpc streamer, if i can get an ion-based system for almost half as much for the same purpose.

Seriously, my P4 northwood core from last year did hulu normal screened just fine. I kinda find it hard to believe a duel-core chip could choke full screen, blown up hulu. Even an Atom...

*eagerly awaits review/benchmarks.*

[Zeta @ Apr 16th 2009 12:48PM]

There's your problem. This isn't a dual core CPU, just single. It chokes on Hulu because Hulu is very CPU intensive and can't work with the GPU.

[Major4Play @ Apr 16th 2009 12:18PM]

A dual core atom is still an atom, an old P4 is massively more powerful than an atom, atoms are based on pentium 1 technology and more comparable in performance to a 1Ghz P3.
Beyond web surfing and mp3 playback these things stink, why don't Acer put a dual core celeron or dual core pentium in these, nice and cheap and still good enough for hd playback.
Whats the point of low(under) powered CPUs it plugs into the wall !

[Alan Strangis @ Apr 16th 2009 2:10PM]

@ Major4Play: Sorry man, but pay attention. The Revo is good for HD playback of videos, it's the Flash based video it has a problem with. If you're less concerned with YouTube and Hulu, and more concerned with recorded TV and HD video files you already have stored, then Revo will do the trick just fine.

Plus L4D at 720p. :)

[bebop @ Apr 16th 2009 11:57AM]

It's small, cute, and reasonably cheap. Low power consumption. Hopefully quiet.

Looking at it next the keyboard, you start thinking though, does it really have to be that small? I mean, does paying for the smallness make any sense considering it's intended use as desktop or media PC?

[glenn s @ Apr 16th 2009 11:59AM]

I can't believe it does not play Hulu well. It would be a real surprise if the production version doesn't iron that out. Those whole purpose of the Ion is to be able to play quality video with the underwhelming Atom processor. If it can't do that, then it is a total failure. Does Hulu use flash? If it does, then Ion should be able to handle the video in hardware. Maybe this will require a flash update for it to recognize the ion GPU. If they're not using flash, then that would suck.

[mitt @ Apr 16th 2009 12:00PM]

why is everyone so dissapointed by it choking on hulu? i thought we established flash video uses the cpu rather than gpu, making this just another nettop in terms of flash video

[Fanfoot @ Apr 16th 2009 1:15PM]

Cuz its the only reason for this product to exist?

For netbooks the Atom makes sense. Not just really cheap but cheap enough that it isn't your only PC. So you use it for a limited number of things, like web browsing.

If it can't be a TV-side internet media player, what's this for? A desktop? C'mon its too underpowered. And what's the HDMI port for then? And why would you need it to be so small if you have to hook it up to a monitor and keyboard and a lot of USB devices?

For a TV-side media player who gives a damn how much power it uses? Other than a low power draw when its asleep, I don't really care. I guess others are right and they should have put a 330 or a ULV CPU in it. Would have bumped the price up, possibly beyond the point of it making any sense (e.g. has to be a lot cheaper than a Dell Studio Hybrid).

Oh well, back to the drawing board unless Nvidia can get Adobe to fix Flash. And for this application not in a postage stamp sized, let it buffer way either. But in an offload to the Ion way. Not holding my breath though.

[Shank @ Apr 16th 2009 12:00PM]

Air killer???

[ed. @ Apr 16th 2009 12:10PM]

except it's not a laptop silly troll...

[Mark @ Apr 16th 2009 12:17PM]

This is a nettop, not a laptop, so there's no way it can kill an Air.

[cayton @ Apr 16th 2009 12:25PM]

OMG!, What will we BREATHE!!!???

[fikhl @ Apr 16th 2009 12:49PM]

That's Acer Aspire Timeline, crushing Adamo and of course Air...

Read: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/acer-announces-aspire-timeline-ultralights-699-to-899/

[ticohans @ Apr 16th 2009 8:41PM]

Forgetting the whole desktop nature of this computer for a moment, doesn't an electronic device need to be sufficiently popular for another to come along and "kill" it?

iPhone "killer" makes sense. iPhone is an enormous phenomenon.

Air "killer" makes no more sense than a Yugo "killer" would in the automotive world.

[sunhi3man @ Apr 16th 2009 12:02PM]

The whole point of the ion setup is the gpu acceleration that allows you to watch hd video smoothly. Flash doesn't utilize this hardware acceleration and therefore relies solely on cpu. I read somewhere that they were going to work on getting acceleration for flash in the future. Also, keep in mind that this device is brand new and the drivers aren't mature.

[TREX6662k5 @ Apr 16th 2009 1:38PM]

What drivers are you talking about? There's no new hardware in this machine. Its merely the combination.