Acer Aspire Revo R3600, £159.95 delivered to Ireland from Ebuyer

Voodu Child

zuroph wrote: »

Its http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225755

£179.95 today :eek: dear lord I wish I had money on my card

Great price considering thats the model with Windows licence and wireless kb/mouse. Also, I got that one and it seems to have b/g/n wifi card and not just b/g as stated.

zuroph

Im hoping this offer will come up again next month, as I plain can t afford it this soon after xmas

Can you guys detail what's got you so excited about it? I mean you just run XBMC on it. You can't watch Blu Ray or Live Tv. I already have XBMC on an old XBOX and since I don't bother with HD I can't see what the fuss is about! I'd love to be enlightened though? I must be missing something

zuroph

Deleted User wrote: »

Can you guys detail what's got you so excited about it? I mean you just run XBMC on it. You can't watch Blu Ray or Live Tv. I already have XBMC on an old XBOX and since I don't bother with HD I can't see what the fuss is about! I'd love to be enlightened though? I must be missing something

theres your problem. bluray scmhu ray, downloading HD is the way.

machalla

zuroph wrote: »

Im hoping this offer will come up again next month, as I plain can t afford it this soon after xmas

The only problem there is that the vat in the Uk rises from 17.5% to 20% as of Jan 4th so if it does it may be that little bit more expensive.

CourierCollie

machalla wrote: »

The only problem there is that the vat in the Uk rises from 17.5% to 20% as of Jan 4th so if it does it may be that little bit more expensive.

Do they not charge the Irish vat rate when you're getting it sent here? If not, I'd assume you're going to get charged on delivery

Also, tried setting up a google checkout account for this. Keeps asking for a postal code, though I can't see a box to put it in. (I'm probably doing something retarded, or losing my eyesight:eek:)

Kotek Besar

CourierCollie wrote: »

Do they not charge the Irish vat rate when you're getting it sent here?

It's UK VAT with Ebuyer. AFAIK they don't sell enough to ROI to cause them to have to pay Irish VAT.

CourierCollie wrote: »

If not, I'd assume you're going to get charged on delivery

Na, VAT is only payable to one EU country. You're thinking of when you import from outside the EU.

vibe666

Deleted User wrote: »

Can you guys detail what's got you so excited about it? I mean you just run XBMC on it. You can't watch Blu Ray or Live Tv. I already have XBMC on an old XBOX and since I don't bother with HD I can't see what the fuss is about! I'd love to be enlightened though? I must be missing something

I have win7 running on mine and use it for pretty much anything you'd use a regular PC for, just on a 40" LCD TV.

i do run XBMC, but I also run Boxee, Hulu, youtubeHD, the RTE player, BBC iPlayer, ITV player, 4OD and more and all in glorious HD where available. there's even HD pr0n out there too apparently, or so I've heard.

as zuroph says, blu-ray is old school, digital downloads and HD streaming are where it's at.

there's even a bit of room for some gaming too thanks to the iON gfx if you don't push the detail levels too much.

I had an old xbox running XBMC for years and even invested in the component cables to get upscaled 1080i video out of it, but i wouldn't dream of going back now, XBMC is only a small part of what I do with my TV now thanks to the little Revo sitting under it and I'd hate to have to go back to a grotty old xbox.

next up is an extra 1gb of RAM to 3gb total (they won't take 4gb thanks to some sort of hardware limitation ) and a nice 60gb SSD that i'll be whipping out of my main PC once I've replaced that with a faster one, then it should fly.

Kotek Besar

vibe666 wrote: »

BBC iPlayer

How?

ThunbergsAreGo

Interested in this.

Was thinking of a new laptop, but would i be better with this and a netbook?

Are the main uses for this streaming tv off the internet? Could the same not be accompliushed with a laptop and a cable connecting to tv?

Or am i missing something?

vibe666

Kotek Besar wrote: »

How?

there's a bunch of ways if you google it.

epatshield is one which is free, altho ad supported it is free and works well for the SD broadcasts. you could also use tor & mgeni. browsing is pretty slow but streaming works okay and usually works for any region specific content anywhere globally if you choose to browse from that country, altho its really meant for people in china etc. to get around the great firewall of china rather than for people like you and me to catch up on episodes of top gear.

there's a bunch of them tho and google as ever is a great resource for finding and trying new things.

The_Conductor

Deleted User wrote: »

Can you guys detail what's got you so excited about it? I mean you just run XBMC on it. You can't watch Blu Ray or Live Tv. I already have XBMC on an old XBOX and since I don't bother with HD I can't see what the fuss is about! I'd love to be enlightened though? I must be missing something

I watch bluray on it- using Nero 10HD for decoding, no issues whatsoever. I also use a DVB-T stick in it, no issues encountered (other than a crap reception).

There is a free mini-pci-e card slot on the motherboard of mine, which I'm debating how to utilise......

ThunbergsAreGo

smccarrick wrote: »

I watch bluray on it- using Nero 10HD for decoding, no issues whatsoever. I also use a DVB-T stick in it, no issues encountered (other than a crap reception).

There is a free mini-pci-e card slot on the motherboard of mine, which I'm debating how to utilise......

But whats the advantage over say a laptop?

The_Conductor

naughtb4 wrote: »

But whats the advantage over say a laptop?

Its like asking whats the difference between an apple and a banana. They are both fruit, and satisfy the same basic need- but are totally different.

This is a micro-desktop PC that you need to plug an external monitor into, alongside a keyboard and a mouse. It is incredibly compact and highly portable, but is not designed to be used away from a monitor and a power supply. Its major selling point is how small it is- thats it, fullstop. Its a micro desktop.

Kotek Besar

smccarrick wrote: »

Its like asking whats the difference between an apple and a banana. They are both fruit, and satisfy the same basic need- but are totally different.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_apples_and_bananas

vibe666

Kotek Besar wrote: »

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_apples_and_bananas

you've got to love our american cousins. :pac:

Badgermonkey

Kotek Besar wrote: »

How?

https://www.blackvpn.com/

Very easy set-up Kotek, discounted too if you use a code.

My code is BJGJEGU

slowlydownwards

Is it worthed stretching up to 199 to get 3700... ion2 + atom d525 @ 1.8ghz? Am not interested in bundled win7.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/236579

Quaderno

No, I wouldn't buy the 3700 instead of the 3610. The ATOM D525 chip alone is fairly new and would probably be around 15% faster than the ATOM 330. The Intel NM10 chipset however is completely different from Nvidia's "original" ION. The cpu is no longer sitting directly on the ION board, which is now rather an attachment to the Intel chipset. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes the whole setup a lot more complicated (technically as well as legally, Nvidia and Intel are infact competitors...) and so I do not expect any real perfomance benefit over the older ATOM 330 / ION package. Some early benchmarks even showed ION 2 to be slightly slower than ION.
The main problem of the older ATOM non-ION boards was rather the chipset than the processor and that was solved big time by the ION chipset. It's much harder to find any significant improvements now.

Given that the harddrive is smaller and you don't get a Win7 licence (even if you don't need it now) I wouldn't spend those £20 more, although the price itself is not bad.

The ATOM 330 together with the "old" ION chipset in the Revo 3610 might even have some overclocking capabilities which the Intel board would most likely lack: http://www.revouser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=283
So you could end up with an older, cheaper and faster system

eamon234

Deleted User wrote: »

Can you guys detail what's got you so excited about it? I mean you just run XBMC on it. You can't watch Blu Ray or Live Tv. I already have XBMC on an old XBOX and since I don't bother with HD I can't see what the fuss is about! I'd love to be enlightened though? I must be missing something

Yes, about four years apparently!:D

Badgermonkey

Price dropped on Acer Aspire Revo R3610 Desktop to £249.00

Intel Atom 330
3GB RAM
500GB HDD

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225756

KeRbDoG

Badgermonkey wrote: »

Price dropped on Acer Aspire Revo R3610 Desktop to £249.00

Intel Atom 330
3GB RAM
500GB HDD

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225756

If your just gonna run a media center off this box yea would be better getting the 2GB-RAM/250GB-HDD one for £70 less before P&P.

Wcool

A year ago I bought the R3600 which I use for XBMC. Absolutely love it, one of my better buys ever.

I briefly tried Windows 7 Release Candidate on it on 1Gb of RAM but found it just a tad too slow for desktop use.

Now, my mother is using a stone age Windows 2000 PC and needs a replacement. She browses the internet, reads emails and a bit of Picassa and Skype.

Would you think the R3610 with 2Gb would be fast enough for that? Any opinion welcome.

The_Conductor

Wcool wrote: »

Would you think the R3610 with 2Gb would be fast enough for that? Any opinion welcome.

More than fast enough- my own preference would be to whack an extra 2Gb RAM in it though, and upgrade to the 64bit version of Home Premium. Its rock solid, and lovely to use (I've the 64 bit version of Ultimate running on mine at the moment- can't recommend it highly enough).

Note- the processor is going to be the bottle neck here- however if you're not doing anything too intensive on it, it should idle on Win7 HP at less than 20% processor use, and only max out during the boot sequence, even while multitasking.

S.

peckerhead

smccarrick wrote: »

...my own preference would be to whack an extra 2Gb RAM in it though, and upgrade to the 64bit version of Home Premium.

My own thoughts exactly — and mine hasn't even arrived yet!
I see the RAM upgrade can be had for under €30 and I can get the 64-bit upgrade through work. Forgive yet another noob question on this thread, but would this make for smoother HD playback/streaming, or is that all down to the graphics capability? And/or would it help with running, say, both XBMC and Windows MC?

The_Conductor

peckerhead wrote: »

My own thoughts exactly — and mine hasn't even arrived yet!
I see the RAM upgrade can be had for under €30 and I can get the 64-bit upgrade through work. Forgive yet another noob question on this thread, but would this make for smoother HD playback/streaming, or is that all down to the graphics capability? And/or would it help with running, say, both XBMC and Windows MC?

You can assign up to 512Mb of RAM to the graphics core- and Win7 HP will love you for the extra memory (less lag, less caching, more responsive- without impacting too much on the processor). XBMC probably doesn't need the boost (and WMC would be satisfied with the 2GB) its so much handier to run things from RAM than from a hard-drive though (I have a batch file that can specify a RAM drive and assign it a drive letter at boot- alongside a later batch that populates it with my favourite music folder, for instant access when I want it).

Play around with it- you're going to have fun one way or the other

Wcool

OK thanks for the tips, along that line the R3700 would be slightly faster as well yes? As that has a faster processor. The price premium is ok with me.

peckerhead

smccarrick wrote: »

I have a batch file that can specify a RAM drive and assign it a drive letter at boot- alongside a later batch that populates it with my favourite music folder, for instant access when I want it

This goes way over my head, but sounds intriguing. I'll certainly play around with it, thanks!

Now to put the ol' WD HDTV player up on Adverts.ie... :pac:

vibe666

peckerhead wrote: »

This goes way over my head, but sounds intriguing. I'll certainly play around with it, thanks!

Now to put the ol' WD HDTV player up on Adverts.ie... :pac:

what he means is, he's actually very old and has been in IT for years and has mad archaic skillz that go back to pre-windows days when you couldn't survive without knowing how to manually edit config files in DOS to re-assign memory and create ram drives and all sorts of other hocus pocus that us youngsters never had to learn thanks to the invention of the GUI. :pac:

Quaderno

Wcool wrote: »

OK thanks for the tips, along that line the R3700 would be slightly faster as well yes? As that has a faster processor. The price premium is ok with me.

As has been mentioned before: the newer D525/ION2 system is not necessarily better than the ATOM 330/ION-combination in the Revo 3610. In any case, both machines are very different:

The ATOM 330 is just a cpu, all the graphics as well as the memory control is done by the ION board the ATOM is directly sitting on. Thus the communication between cpu, memory and gpu is pretty fast and such is the graphics perfomance. Furthermore as there are just one cpu and one gpu the system is very efficient energywise, it doesn't consume more energy than the older (and much slower) non-ION boards.

The newer ("pineview") ATOM D525 however is not just a processor like the ATOM 330 as it includes Intels integrated GMA3150 graphics as well as the memory controller directly on the processor die. This may be great in comparison to the "old" ATOM boards, because this setup is slightly faster and (more importantly) much more efficient than the old Intel chipset for the earlier ATOM processors. These new processors can however - mainly due to legal constraints - no longer be soldered directly onto Nvidias ION boards. So you now have a processor with integrated (slow) graphics and its own on-chip memory controller, but very limited connectivity options for the (additional) Nvidia-gpu. More on that problem can be found here.

Furthermore as there are now two gpus (the one on the ION2-board as well as the integrated GMA3150 in the ATOM D525) the system consumes more energy and is likely to produce more heat than the ATOM 330/ION combination, which is never a good thing in a small machine. Even if the performance might eventually be slightly higher in very controlled circumstances and with a perfect driver configuration I remain a big fan of simple solutions and so I do not like the ION2 concept, which by the way is not Nvidias but entirely Intels "fault", as they understandably wish to increase the level of integration and lower the production costs of their processors. As mentioned, legal "problems" are a major factor too.

The ATOM 330 was the perfect processor for Nvidia to build the "original" and very, very good ION chipset around, while the ATOM D525 together with the limited GMA3150 graphics for many applications is a good enough and quite efficient processor on its own (and much better than all the older Intel ATOM/chipset combinations).
But pineview processors and external ION graphics together to me seem to be a step in the wrong direction, although I can fully understand Nvidias desire to remain in the market for ION boards.
To cut a long story short: with the older Atom 330 on an Nvidia ION chipset you will achive a performance that is very close to that of the newer systems, but that setup is much simpler, more efficient and last but not least significantly cheaper. And as I wrote before: it seems to be possible to overclock the whole ION board (cpu, gpu, memory and all) to at least the clock level of the D525 without any hardware modifications. That would do the trick for me entirely...

P.S. According to the specs and one of the reviews on the site the Revo 3700 (unlike the 3610) does not have eSata. If you like to store your data on an external eSata-hdd that could turn out to be a problem.