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

richardw001 · 21-06-2010 10:55AM

Google checkout is gone from ebuyer temporarily (according to them because some vat reason needs to be sorted out).

I ordered a revo (3610 - not the 3600) last week from ebuyer.

i.e.

Aspire Revo R3610 Desktop,Intel Atom Dual Core N330, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD,HDMI, GeForce 9400 ION, Linpus Linux - for 190 sterling - including postage.

Used the REP123 address code and everything seemed to go alright (so far !) Once the address was sorted (this is a pain though)
I put Ireland down as the last box of the address so its being shipped to

xxxx
xxx
xxxx
Ireland
REP123
United Kingdom

(btw ebuyer have an ebay shop as well - ebuyerexpress - and they ship to ireland if something is under a certain weight)

Its a shame that these acers are so expensive in all the other online shops From what I can see The irish online shop prices for these are all 100 euros plus over the odds.

j4vier · 21-06-2010 10:59AM

thanks guys for the info, 40% cpu usage when playin 1080p movies is not exactly what I'm looking for,are there more powerful versions of the revo around?

stiofan85 · 21-06-2010 11:07AM

ah balls - would you mind posting back if you get it?

If only their site was better - I hate registering to buy something. Why can't they just have a guest shopping cart and the option to choose your country.

richardw001 · 21-06-2010 11:21AM

You can use paypal - however its still a pain as you still have to register to use it i.e. the address that comes up to ship to is the one you register with.

btw the 3610 is a much better machine as a HTPC - its dual core - rather than the 3600. There's only so much extra performance you get even with xtra ram - the processor is the key really.

I was looking on ebay as well - and the prices there seem to be quite high - even from Taiwan - which I'd have some misgivings about buying from in case of a problem :-)

stiofan85 · 21-06-2010 11:32AM

Yeah I got the R3610, definitely wanted the better performance. Hopefully I'll have no trouble.

Once again, it's a pity the process with eBuyer is so sh*te. Because you have to deliver to your billing address on your first order, I couldn't use PayPal as there's no one home to receive the package. Pain in the balls, but there ya go - once the thing arrives and works, I'll be happy!

richardw001 · 21-06-2010 11:37AM

stiofan85 wrote: »

Yeah I got the R3610, definitely wanted the better performance. Hopefully I'll have no trouble.

Once again, it's a pity the process with eBuyer is so sh*te. Because you have to deliver to your billing address on your first order, I couldn't use PayPal as there's no one home to receive the package. Pain in the balls, but there ya go - once the thing arrives and works, I'll be happy!

They dont check that its the billing address if its paypal - so you can simply get it sent to a work address.

I agree regarding the ebuyer process - I imagine that they are loosing tons of Irish business because its so difficult to order from irl.

stiofan85 · 21-06-2010 11:39AM

richardw001 wrote: »

They dont check that its the billing address if its paypal - so you can simply get it sent to a work address.
.

You've actually ruined my day now.

Enjoy your savings!

richardw001 · 21-06-2010 11:42AM

stiofan85 wrote: »

You've actually ruined my day now.

Enjoy your savings!

I wouldnt worry - you got a bigger disk drive so its academic which one is the better bargain :-)
Hope it works out for you.

Nollog · 21-06-2010 06:29PM

j4vier wrote: »

thanks guys for the info, 40% cpu usage when playin 1080p movies is not exactly what I'm looking for,are there more powerful versions of the revo around?

http://nollog.co.cc/1089.png
I have the single core model. ( the second cpu % you see is the hyperthreading )
Movie's being streamed over 54mbit wireless.

turly · 22-06-2010 09:35AM

j4vier wrote: »

thanks guys for the info, 40% cpu usage when playin 1080p movies is not exactly what I'm looking for,are there more powerful versions of the revo around?

I use XBMC Live (ION-aware Linux-based XBMC) on a single-core R3600, streaming via SMB over Homeplug from an el-cheapo NAS box in another room, with Ember Media Manager on the PC to set up the XBMC Library and do all the fanart scraping etc. I had a spare 2GB SODIMM and upgraded the R3600 to 3GB of RAM, and have 512 MB allocated to the ION frame buffer.

I get between 20 and 40% CPU usage when playing the infamous 'killa.sampla.x264.mkv' 1080p @ 35 MBit/s. My old Popcorn Hour couldn't play this file without massive frame dropping, and that was from a connected disk.

40% is too high, you say... but ask yourself: what else is your media centre going to be doing while you're watching a movie? In most cases, nothing.

Though I once got it to recompile a new kernel while watching killa.sampla repeatedly.
No dropped frames (and CPU usage @ 100% because of the compiling, the fan did get appreciably louder.)

40% is hardly breaking sweat. Make the bastards work!

mwrf · 22-06-2010 04:06PM

Just got one there (3610). Worked out at 220 delivered.
Going to put windows 7 on it and use as a media centre, along with some light gaming.

mwrf · 22-06-2010 04:18PM

How long have people generally been waiting for it to be delivered? I'm excited now

stiofan85 · 22-06-2010 05:11PM

mwrf wrote: »

Just got one there (3610). Worked out at 220 delivered.
Going to put windows 7 on it and use as a media centre, along with some light gaming.

Ah, I didn't do too bad so - mine came in at €246 from ebay with the bigger Harddrive. Don't feel too bad now! Fed Ex says mine'll be here from Taiwan in 7 days. I imagine Ebuyer will sort you out quicker!

kaisersose77 · 22-06-2010 06:36PM

stiofan85 wrote: »

Ah, I didn't do too bad so - mine came in at €246 from ebay with the bigger Harddrive. Don't feel too bad now! Fed Ex says mine'll be here from Taiwan in 7 days. I imagine Ebuyer will sort you out quicker!

Very good chance you'll have to pay import duty with Fedex unfortunately

byte · 22-06-2010 10:02PM

Is it possible to somehow get a remote control for these? I'd rather a wireless controller of some sort over a wireless keyboard/mouse combo for use as a media centre.

Irish Halo · 22-06-2010 10:20PM

I'm currently using this with Boxee, a bluetooth adaptor and a wiimote to control that. There are 11 buttons which I find enough and I don't use the pointer/ir or the accelerometers. Getting the wiimote to work as I want it (on it's side like a NES controller) and at start up without faffing about was a touch tricky but OK once I beat CWiiD/wmgui in to submission (should have taken notes but can help a little I think if needed).

byte · 22-06-2010 10:50PM

Hmm, hadn't considered bluetooth. BT dongles can be quite small now, so tidy at the front USB.

I know I shouldn't but I'd really like one of these.

j4vier · 22-06-2010 11:19PM

is there a port for pluggin in 5.1 speakers?

i cant see one in the pics on ebuyer

stiofan85 · 30-06-2010 09:20AM

Hurrah! It arrived, no income duty thanks to a slip declaring "no commercial value" in the manifest.

Linpus Linux is sh*te however! Managed to get Ubuntu onto it, but can't get the wireless driver installed. Having no joy putting XP on from USB so going to try to get a hold of an external CD drive to try that way.

Kotek Besar · 30-06-2010 09:30AM

stiofan85 wrote: »

Hurrah! It arrived, no income duty thanks to a slip declaring "no commercial value" in the manifest.

That wouldn't have been the reason for not being charged VAT. Customs pay no attention to things like "no commercial value", "gift" or "value = HK$10".

stiofan85 · 30-06-2010 09:57AM

^^ Fair enough. Still great to have dodged that bullet!

Kotek Besar · 30-06-2010 09:59AM

stiofan85 wrote: »

^^ Fair enough. Still great to have dodged that bullet!

Indeed, you're very lucky. Perhaps Customs were on their lunch when your parcel came in.

Wayne Scales · 30-06-2010 06:58PM

Can anyone suggest any way of getting this wee machine to upscale SD to 1080p ?

Voodu Child · 30-06-2010 08:34PM

Wayne Scales wrote: »

Can anyone suggest any way of getting this wee machine to upscale SD to 1080p ?

Assuming your TV is 1080p, set the output to 1080p. Actually it will probably set itself to 1080p automatically.

If you are watching a SD video and it fills the screen, it is being upscaled.

Wayne Scales · 30-06-2010 09:52PM

Its already set to output 1080p but it certainly doesnt look Hi-Def ?

byte · 30-06-2010 10:14PM

Wayne Scales wrote: »

Its already set to output 1080p but it certainly doesnt look Hi-Def ?

What SD stuff are you trying to upscale?

SD upscaling will never look as good as proper HD video.

Wayne Scales · 01-07-2010 05:37PM

I have a PS3 connected to the same TV and it upscales SD avi files to HD but I have never been able to get the Acer to upscale like it - I have tried FFDshow but it still looks like normal SD.

Voodu Child · 01-07-2010 05:50PM

Upscaling simply means to take a low resolution video and stretch it out to fit a higher resolution screen.

You can't make it HD quality, because you can't add detail that isn't there in the first place. The only thing you can do is make sure you are using high quality scaling. Most video playing software will let you choose between bilinear, bicubic, sinc, lanczos etc. Just pick the best one that your processor or video card can handle.

You havent given any details (at all) about what OS and software setup you have so its impossible for me to be any more specific.

Wayne Scales · 01-07-2010 06:13PM

Voodu Child wrote: »

You havent given any details (at all) about what OS and software setup you have so its impossible for me to be any more specific.

I am running Windows 7 , Use VLC to play the files. Graphics card is GeForce 9400 , any suggestions on what software would best suit this setup or what config changes are required would be appreciated...

Voodu Child · 01-07-2010 06:38PM

Wayne Scales wrote: »

I am running Windows 7 , Use VLC to play the files. Graphics card is GeForce 9400 , any suggestions on what software would best suit this setup or what config changes are required would be appreciated...

If you're going to stick with VLC you'll find various options under the Video tab to improve video quality (Tools > Preferences > Video). Try changing the output module to maybe Direct X, the default one usually looks weoful under Windows.

I would not use VLC personally, that doesnt have any support for GPU acceleration. The whole point imo of the Acer Revo is to use the Nvidia card for video acceleration (DXVA under Windows) so you can play high-def x264 content. Ditch your AVI files and download MKV with x264 in future.

Try Media Player Classic Home Cinema. It's included in the K-Lite Codec Pack (Link). You can enable DXVA by going to Options > Internal Filters. (tick H264/AVC DXVA).

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

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