Joined on 06/06/02
DON'T BUY (leave stock available for me!)
Pros: Elegant. Simple. Powerful. Solid. Full featured. Inexpensive. The front is a single sheet of glass. There are no bevels around the LCD to catch dust. Buttons and IO ports are logically placed and easy to access. Power cord runs through the center of the stand. Very little OEM software, only three things to uninstall: Office 2007 Trial, Norton Antivirus Trial, and Wildgames. Razor sharp, very bright screen with accurate colors. Very little fan noise from the 80mm rear fan. Hard to detect hard drive noise. Built in cable TV input. The Windows Media Center remote slides into a compartment on the side of the keyboard. How cool is that? No Dead Pixels. No DOA components.
Cons: I only bought one. Seriously, the built in stereo speakers are in the back facing backward, so they don't sound that great. But they're loud and very usable if you're not intending to connect external speakers. The rectangle shaped wireless mouse feels a little funny at first, but it's got good proportions and just the right click firmness. Would be nice if the keyboard had a mouse.
Overall Review: This is an extremely great bargain. The design is stunning. I've built and sold hundreds of computers from components purchased on Newegg. I could not build a PC with as much bang, simplicity, and shear beauty as this baby. My mom wanted a new computer for Christmas. I didn't want to build one from scratch. Three years ago I bought her an Averatec laptop that has held up nicely, so I was comfortable with the brand. I was concerned about quality since the thing is so cheap. But hey, no guts, no glory! I can't believe I'm the first to write a review. This unit should be selling like hotcakes. Ok, so it might not be for gamers. But if you need a power PC with the Windows OS and don't want to spend the time building and installing Windows, this is the way to go. It's just flat out gorgeous. Can't get over the remote control compartment in the keyboard.
No LAN
Pros: Pretty
Cons: Ethernet NIC dead. Ya, ya, I read a ton of forums about this problem after the fact. Did everything suggested. It's a failed design or DOA component - my first after hundreds of Asus builds. I'll try to contact Asus after writing this review. But right now I have nothing favorable to say.
Surprisingly Configurable
Pros: Roomy, slide-out mobo tray, temp sensors w/digital display, 120 quiet fan in the PS, aluminum (won't rust), retractable carry handle, three HD slots and two CD/DVD slots, 3.5" slot, font panel connections, cute as kittens.
Cons: none, it is what it is.
Overall Review: Got this for my office manager because I made the mistake of letting her browse through Newegg until she found something she liked. She chose it because of the hot pink face plate and because it was square. To me, it's based on the old "LAN party" cases with handles so you could carry them to your bud's house and play Quake. My only requirement was that it fit an existing ATX mobo and had a rear 120mm fan port. The point of this build was to replace a mini tower that would get too hot and whine all day. I've gotten turned on to water cooling so also bought the Corsair Seidon liquid CPU cooler. I ran into a problem right away in that the Seidon radiator's end covers extend further than the framing at the 120mm fan port on the case. I had to cut the cross the crass bar that holds the extra HD trays in half. This didn't weaken the case too much, and when the cover goes back on it will be fine. It was easy to cut the cross bar because the whole thing is made of aluminum. I still have to cut a slot on the top of the case for the upper side of the radiator. Again, cuz it's all aluminum, some tin snips will do the job. In the end this build will have the radiator sticking out the top of the case about a 1/4 of an inch at the back of the case. That would suck if I had to stash another device on top, but since there's no need there's no issue. The moral of this story is that while this case is very roomy, cute, and a great value for the price, you'll have to get creative with a liquid cooler if you plan on using one. But once it's in there, the windows let you see the radiator and hoses. On the front it looks cute, but inside it looks super macho. All in all, a pretty decent case that I'd use again for an HTPC or any girls that wants a pretty, boxy PC.
Can't comment on Gaming
Pros: Acer bang for the buck
Cons: None in this comment
Overall Review: I'm still the first reviewer so I can keep talking. I meant to say I'm not a gamer so have no idea about screen shear due to the 14ms refresh spec. But I played Blood and Chrome at 1080p and it didn't shear. In fact, it looked better than on my 60" Samsung LED TV with BluRay dvd player. It looks so good, I'm going to sit here and watch it again. Man, it looks really fracking good! Six stars for this monitor.
Skinny laptop needs skinny SSD
Pros: Silver, one screw to remove the access cover, no button mouse, flush keys, VGA, HDMI
Cons: Power cord sticks out the side. Headphone and Microphone jack presumably the same.
Overall Review: Like Coderego said below, if you want to install and SSD get the thin kind. He says 7mm, but I don't know anything about it yet. (and I called my Tech Knowledge "high", hehe) All the SSDs I have wouldn't fit. So I went with the Crucial mSATA 32GB at NewEgg and the iOcrest mSATA SSD to 2.5" SATA adapter. I might be losing some trans rate speed that way, but who gives a rip? It's simply the fastest lappy I've ever laid sweaty palms on.
Great Server
Pros: Compact, quiet, nice front cover hinges or removes completely, takes all kinds of RAM, fast.
Cons: As another said, it's got a long boot up time. The post process is like watching a dozen previews at the theater. It's entertaining and informative, but slow. I used the buy the drive trays from that jungle store, but now Newegg carries them. Look for item 9SIA1KT0ER3515
Overall Review: We've moved away from building servers from scratch, and going with HP proliant systems. This server is turning out to be the sweet spot between cost and performance. Quad Xeon is perfect for an office of 25 users or less. Add another pair of 4GB memsticks (like N82E16820139262) for a total of 16GB, and it runs Windows SBS 2011 very nice.