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Carolyn Ong

Acer Aspire RC500

Specifications

Price: HK$11,880

Pros: Sophisticated design, high-performance machine at a reasonable price

Cons: DVD burner does not support multiple DVD format

The new Aspire RC500 from Taiwan's Acer is one of an emerging new class of personal computers designed to be a total home entertainment hub; machines that combine work and leisure. This new Aspire could easily be mistaken for a home hi-fi system with its classy design of sharp lines against a black and metallic colour scheme.

The RC500 has five entertainment modes: video, television, picture, music and FM radio. You can flick between the different modes by using the bundled remote control, turning a dial on the CPU tower or hotkeys located on the keyboard.

Multimedia mavens would find in the RC500 enough power for all the games and video editing they would want to do. It is equipped with a 2.6 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 processor with 800MHz front side bus, supporting Intel hyper-threading technology. It comes with 80 gigabytes to 120GB of hard disk space and you can add a secondary hard disk. It has a 7-in-1 smart media reader, allowing users to read directly from most of the popular flash memory cards. Furthermore, optical and coaxial SPDIF audio-out connectors give users the option to enjoy sound direct from their own hi-fi systems while watching movies and videos.

For HK$11,880, you get also a 15-inch LCD display, wireless keyboard and mouse, microphone headset and speakers with subwoofer. You could get PCs of the same specifications from Dell Computer or Hewlett-Packard, but I have done the shopping and the Acer wins. It scores on design, specifications and price.



Home entertainer leaves rivals behind