Acer Aspire X1200: HTPC and Multimedia Power In a Small Package

Big Features, Small Form Factor

The Acer Aspire X1200 offers an amazing range of features for a system that has a diminutive form factor of 10.6 x 4.0 x 14.4 inches:

• Nine USB 2.0 ports (five front/four rear)
• PCI Express 2.0 x1 slot
• PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot
• 14-in-1 multi-slot card reader (includes support for Compact Flash as well as smaller form factors)
• IEEE-1394a (FireWire 400) port
• SuperMulti DVD (DVD+R/RW, -R/RW, RAM) DL drive
• Front stereo audio and microphone jacks
• Rear 7.1 audio and microphone jacks
• HDMI and VGA video
• PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports
• eSATA port
• Gigabit Ethernet port
• 56Kbps fax modem
• 4GB DDR2 RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce 8200 chipset with PureVideo HD Technology and DirectX 10 support

Power for HTPC and Multimedia Users

The Aspire X1200 is aimed squarely at the home theater/PC entertainment crowd. It's small enough to fit inconspicuously beside your home theater system and HDTV, and by adding a TV tuner, you can turn it into a full-bore entertainment system.

Configurations

• The X1200-U1520A ($449.99), available now, includes a 320GB SATA II hard disk, Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1, and uses the AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz CPU.
• The X1200-U1510A ($459.99), available now, has the same configuration as the U1520A version, except it substitutes the AMD Athlon X2 5000+ 2.6GHz CPU.
• The X1200-B1581A ($699.99), available on July 13, has the same configuration as the U1520A version, but substitutes a 500GB SATA II hard disk and adds a 22-inch widescreen LCD display.

For more information, see Acer's press release.

Feedback Wanted

How about it? Are you looking for a low-cost PC for home theater use? Are you already using a PC with these components? Share your thoughts.

(personal note: I'm almost done with my book on Windows Vista Media Center, and I'd love to have one of these in my living room instead of the hulking full-tower PC I'm using for WMC right now)

Figure courtesy Crunchgear