Acer AcerPower FH Budget Desktop PC

AcerPower FH Desktop

©Acer

Description

• Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 Dual Core Desktop Processor
• Two Gigabytes PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory
• 160GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
• 16x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Burner
• Intel GMA 3000 Integrated Graphics
• HDA 7.1 Audio
• Gigabit Ethernet Interface
• Six USB 2.0 Ports
• Windows XP Professional

Guide Review - Acer AcerPower FH 4401 Budget Desktop PC

10/22/07 – The AcerPower FH lineup of desktops is very clearly directed at businesses looking for a low cost desktop option. That doesn't mean that this can't make a very usable home desktop system. Some of the features are very clearly targeted at business use. Take the Windows XP Professional operating system over the newer Vista. This may actually be a bonus for many people who don't want to migrate to the new OS yet.

In terms of performance, the AcerPower FH 4401 has lots of it for the price. Rather than using older Pentium D or Duo models, Acer has elected to use a newer Core 2 Duo E4400 dual core processor. This gives it an edge on most available budget desktops. Combine this with two full gigabytes of memory and the Windows XP Professional operating system and it should have no trouble handling multitasking.

Storage does suffer a bit over a traditional consumer system. Most budget desktops have 300GB or more of hard drive space, but the AcerPower FH comes only with a 160GB drive. This is large for a business system but still quite low overall for the market segment. At least they included a dual layer DVD burner over the more traditional CD-RW/DVD combo drive found in business PCs.

While performance is quite good, the business nature means that many smaller peripheral interconnects are missing. The system has six USB 2.0 ports, but lacks any FireWire connector or a media card reader for digital peripherals. They also elected to not include a modem with the system even though they are not used as frequently as in the past.

What this ends up with is a system that is a good fit for those needing strong performance but don't require much in terms of storage space or peripheral connectivity.