What we really don’t like about nettops is that for just a few more bucks you can buy a budget PC that gives a little bit more power and provide a dramatic performance uptick. And same priced netbooks offer the same performance but provides portability. Unless nettop makers answer both problems then nettops are just a waste of your money.

This is where the Aspire Revo 1600 comes in. The Aspire Revo 1600’s price is low enough to be a contender against netbooks. As a traditional computer, the Aspire Revo 1600 is worth considering for use as a cloud-computing terminal or a PC for the kids to bang around on.

Acer and Nvidia is trying to sell this unit as a living room PC, but that would be a hard sell, a $199 Xbox 360 can perform the same digital-media tasks, yet also offers an optical drive and powerful gaming capability this Acer system can’t hope to match.

So do you really need an Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H? The answer is definitely no.