Acer Aspire E700 MMX1

Acer dabbles across a number of product ranges including LCDs, projectors, servers and data storage solutions, but in Australia, it's known mainly for its number three position in the PC market. The company has stated that it intends to become number one in this country, however the Aspire E700 MMX1 may not be the key in achieving that goal.

Design
The black and silver case certainly looks the deal with its blue-lit power button and sliding front panel that hides away the ports. A rubber padded section on the top of the machine emblazoned with Acer's logo serves as, well ... we're not sure. It could be a mouse mat, but it could just as easily be a handy spot for a cup of coffee.

The internals are nicely ventilated, with easy access for maintenance and upgrades courtesy of the thumb-screws securing the main panel. The layout is nice and open, so main-board access for techies is a breeze.

Features
Hidden behind the front sliding panel are headphone and microphone jacks, four USB ports, a Firewire connector and a range of card reader slots, supporting Memory Stick, XD, CF and SD.

Running on Windows Vista Home Premium, the unit boasts an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 1.86GHz, supported by 1GB of RAM. At the rear you'll find the usual PC I/O ports and multimedia extras, including a full suite of audio jacks (including S/PDIF) for surround sound. Video is well covered by S-video, composite, VGA and DVI outputs as well as a coaxial TV input, while on the communications side a gigabit Ethernet card means local network streaming should never be an issue.

Unfortunately the price doesn't include a monitor, however given the media centre focus this shouldn't be too much of an issue -- this machine is intended for your big-screen TV. This is emphasised by the supplied wireless keyboard, remote and mouse, necessities for comfortable couch control. The keyboard is nice and large with clearly marked keys, the remote following suit by being comfortable with well spaced buttons.

Even if the main unit is hidden away in a cupboard, you can use the external IR receiver extension to pick up your remote. Just make sure that both internal and external sensors can't see the remote at the same time, or all your commands will be processed twice!

Performance
The Aspire E700 MMX1 doesn't exactly ooze power, but will serve most family needs adequately. The table below provides performance scores for a range of benchmark applications: 3DMark06 tests graphics performance, while PCMark tests the general system performance.

The Radeon X1550 graphics card included isn't amazing, but this is probably the single low point for this machine. While it would struggle with the latest games, it does the job just fine for standard video entertainment.

The dual-core processor, fast hard drive and full gigabyte of RAM provide strong support for your applications and multitasking, making the machine highly useable across a variety of software suites.

The Acer Aspire E700 MMX1 is a respectable but not groundbreaking machine, backed by a 12 month on-site warranty and 90 days of phone support for hardware issues. While we've seen other machines that have managed better results for the price, we've not seen one in such a well designed package, scoring the Aspire E700 MMX1 a qualified thumbs up.