The Acer Aspire X1700-U3700A is a budget desktop that packs almost enough power to use as a basic desktop or a light-duty home theater PC. Currently priced around $378 at The Nerds.net ($383 at pcRUSh), the X1700 utilizes space saving thin design which allows you to place it anywhere in your home. Really picture how small & thin this machine is! It’s only 10.7 inches tall, 4.2 inches wide, and 15 inches deep! It comes with a DVD burner, a media card reader, FireWire 400 port, five USB ports, and standard audio & headphone jacks.

The X1700 comes with an Intel Pentium dual-core processor running at 2.4Ghz, 4GB of RAM, and a 640GB SATA Hard drive. The high end audio S/PDIF is a nice surprise here; the NVidia Geforce G100 Graphics card has 512MB of RAM. The system comes with Windows Vista – October 23rd isn’t here yet so we can’t get Windows 7. See the X1700 on Acer’s website; all the specs are here.

Review Summaries
CNET says the Acer X1700 succeeds where the others fail, by offering budget-minded shoppers a slim-tower computer with solid components and a collection of handy media ports. The machine keeps the same style of its previous incarnations: a glossy black front panel hides a dual layer DVD burner, media card reader, and the rest of the ports. The rear of the system supplies more USB ports and an eSATA port for plugging in additional external storage. You can connect the X1700 via VGA, DVI, or through the built-in HDMI port for watching high definition movies or streaming video online. No make the big mistake of expecting the video card to power your graphics-intensive PC games! The high end S/PDIF digital audio has output for full 5.1 channel surround sound using a single cord, or you can use standard PC speakers with the analog 5.1 jacks.

According the PCMAG the X1700 is so compact that you could easily slip it into a home-theater cabinet and hook it up to your HDTV’s HDMI port. You could then watch Web videos from Hulu or YouTube right on your TV. The X1700 lacks a Blu-ray drive, so you can’t watch Blu-ray movies on it (you’d have to upgrade to the more expensive Aspire X3200 series for that). However, you can view DVD movies on the included DVD burner.

If you’re into gaming or watching high-def movies don’t expect much out of the Acer Aspire X1700-U3700A. Crysis and World in Conflict were able to load in PCMAG’s gaming tests but were quite unplayable single-digit frame rates. The machine is great for light 3-D gaming, DVD movie watching, and internet browsing. If you’re wanting to do more multimedia tasks or high end entertainment look elsewhere. The X1700 performs great if you use it for what it was intended for: basic desktop computing.

User Opinions.

The Acer Aspire X1700-U3700A currently has 18 reviews with an average rating of 4 eggs at Newegg. Here’s some user highlights:

• “I needed power in a small package. I needed a versatile PC that had a 64-bit processor, good clock speed, and SMALL. I dug up ALL the small desktops I could find on newegg, and even thought about building a small PC. This is the winner hands down. Even if I would to build the same PC from scratch, it would cost the same, and I would have trouble finding a case this small. This way, I get it all assembled and it has a warranty.”

• “Sleek, powerful, almost silent. Has the appropriate linkage (HDMI, Optical Audio, esta) to work perfectly as a HTPC. I had shopped around pricing individual parts and for the time and bang for your buck this computer is great! I am running MediaPortal and it records and displays HD TV content as well as local media without a hiccup. Works well upright or on it’s side for a low-profile.”

Video Review

Price Roundup
• The Nerds.net sells the X1700 for $379.
• pcRUSh has the X1700 for $383.

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