Desktops: Acer Aspire M5640

Acer Aspire M5640

Just recently purchased a brand new PC from Acer. Having been my second PC and my first branded one (previous one was custom built), I must say that I'm relatively happy with the machine I bought, considering the price and the parts inside.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz
ATI Radeon 2400 HD PRO
2GB DDR2 RAM
250GB HDD
HD DVD + Bluray player

But there are a few things that tick me off though and I have learnt the hard way about acquiring "branded" PCs through retail. First, the keyboard that comes with the PC is no where near as good as the Microsoft keyboard that I have with my old PC, but it is wireless which is an advantage IMO. It is hard to type on.

Secondly, the processor has been underclocked to 1.6GHz and there is no option to overclock back to its intended speed of 2.4GHz, I can see the reasoning behind that but I think its outrageous. It still feels fast and speedy compared to my 1.5GHz single-core AMD Sempron.

Thirdly, there is no Windows Vista DVD OEM with the PC, they expect you to make some kind of back up in case of failure, giving you almost no control over the set up and installation, nevertheless bundling crapware that required me to uninstall it all, which I did almost immediately. Vista, while IMO is quite nice and rich is also a resource hog and uses up to half the RAM!

Despite the caveats, the positives outweigh the negatives with the machine and I'm so much thrilled with the features in it that I don't intend to take it back and get a refund. It is also very quiet compared to my old machine and it has a TV tuner as well which is a big + and won me over. It is also expandable, another + for me.

All in all, this is not a bad machine and I only paid $1,199 AUD (discounted), I can easily recommend this machine over a HP or Dell for home or production use.