My review on the Acer Revo

I had to set a few of these up as an on-call job at a small private school. Let me start by saying, even though they may not be as pretty as the Eee Box, the Bang:Buck ratio is a hell of a lot better. You get a wireless keyboard, mouse, and webcam included, and it can be mounted to the back of your monitor via VESA mount.

This thing can be mounted any of these ways:

• Lying flat (pictured)
• On a vertical stand
• Attached to the back of your monitor with the included VESA mount

I was told to install the latest version of Ubuntu (eek!) on them. Surprisingly, everything worked out of the box. Wi-Fi, the keyboard and mouse, the screen resolution, the webcam, everything. Here are all the plugs and buzzers that can be found on the four sizes of this device:

• Six USB ports (four on one side, one on another side, and another by the power button)
• HDMI and VGA
• Audio in and out (This thing does not have a built in speaker)
• Ethernet
• Power connecter
• Flash card reader

This is quite a nice nettop. It's silent except for a small fan burst when you first turn it on. If you're a Mactard that likes screwing around with Photo Booth (I'm a Mactard ), you'll like using Cheese (in the repos) to take some crazyass pix.

By default, the system comes with Windows Vista. I can't say much about that because I wiped the computers before even booting from the hard disk.

Now, for the bad, but these aren't huge problems. First off, the included keyboard does not have a caps lock indicator. The only way to tell if your caps lock is on is by test-typing. If there is a panel widget that can show caps-lock status, do let me know.

Another con - It's kinda ugly. The way they bend the corner for the power button looks like crap, especially when standing vertically.

All in all, if you're looking for a small computer, this is a nice product! If you favor form over function, you may want to check out the Eee Box. It looks nicer (IMO), but it doesn't include peripherals and cannot be monitor-mounted.

This is my first review, so pardon any errors, etc.

Peace out!