The slim and sleek body of the Aspire L310 looks amazing, but be prepared to sacrifice (hardware) upgrade potential if you opt for one of these compact babies. Well, that’s obvious enough. So, what else did CNET say in their review of one of Acer’s latest desktops:

The Aspire L310 works as a trim, affordable computer that will also serve light home-theater-PC duties. It doesn’t offer as much room for improvement as its competition, but as long as you don’t have plans for upgrading or running Windows Vista full bore, this system will serve you well.

Around US$850 for a 1.86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB DDRII RAM (max. 2GB), and a 250GB hard disk seems pretty good (among the big names at least), but note that it doesn’t come with a DVD writer or a dedicated graphics card of any sort. Of course, it is a small-form-factor PC, so I guess we weren’t supposed to expect too much, right?

P.S.: There doesn’t seem to be much stock of it online yet, at least, compared to the HP Pavilion Slimlines.

(Source: CNET)

In certain parts of Asia, e.g. Malaysia, Acer has launched an upgraded AMD dual-core version of its relatively dated Acer Aspire T160.

The older T160 sported a 2.4GHz Athlon 64 3400+ processor (which is still available if you’re looking for a lower-end T160), but you’ll get an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ dual-core processor, a 160GB SATA hard disk drive, and a dual-layer DVD burner instead if you opt for Acer’s latest incarnation of the Aspire T160.

It’s still a budget desktop, of course, especially given the intergrated nVidia nForce 4 graphics, but for only RM2,988 (around US$850), what do you expect?

(Source: TrustedReviews)

The Acer CU-6530 digital camera reviewed last month by TrustedReviews, and the Acer Aspire E-Series desktops, have each received the internationally renowned Red Dot Design Award for 2006. These awards are presented by Germany’s Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen (DZNW) for outstanding design quality and innovative designs during the annual Red Dot Design Award international competition.

Both the CU-6530 and Aspire E-Series desktops were judged within the Media and Home Electronics category, where judging criteria included the “…product’s degree of innovation, functionality, ergonomic value, durability and ecological soundness.”

These awards follow the 2006 iF Design Awards received by the Acer TravelMate 8200 and 5-Series LCD Monitors earlier this year.

(Source: Acer)

In early February, Acer unveiled the Acer Aspire E500 in India - another step towards capturing India’s mainstream desktop market. The Aspire E500 is equipped with a 3.06GHz Pentium 4 processor, 256MB DDR2 RAM, and a 80 GB SATA HDD, but lacks a dedicated graphics card (on-board ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200).

This is clearly a sharp modification from Aspire E500-series desktops launched elsewhere in Asia, and thus, clearly reflects Acer’s target range in India’s rapidly growing PC market. Even Thailand’s model comes with a standard 1GB DDR2 RAM, a 250GB HDD and a 256MB PCI-Express ATI X600 Pro.

However, the Aspire E500’s “All-In-One Entertainment” function has not changed as India’s model still comes preinstalled with Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition, and equipped with a dual input TV tuner card with an Infrared (IR) remote and IR receiver.

[News via EFYTimes]