Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsNice computer.....but has a few minor issues
Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2021
I like Acer laptops and they usually are trouble-free for a few years for me. However, I have had worse luck with Acer desktops. This is my third Acer desktop in the past 10 years and my first one lasted just a week. So I went 8 years with HP or homemade desktop computers and finally stopped making my own desktops since it's very time-consuming. So, I got 2 different Acer desktops and first one lasted me just 1 year. Now, I got this particular Acer desktop as my main home/office computer. Price was fine. It has Windows 10 on it, DVD burner/player, SD card reader, jacks up front for headphone and microphone. Also, 2 USB 3.0 ports on the front of this desktop too. The DVD player/burner sits sideways on this unit and not sure why because this desktop is wide enough to have the DVD unit sit normal-ways in this desktop unit. DVD player/burner works fine......sometimes. The SD card reader does not work at all and the front jacks do not work at all. I ended up getting an external SD card reader and external DVD player/burner and connecting it to a USB hub I have connected to this Acer desktop computer and both works just fine. However, the front USB ports both do work just fine. This desktop has the AMD Ryzen 5 3400G and I do like AMD chips a bit more than Intel chips. It has AMD Radeon on it as well. Graphics is nice, but not for moderate or intense gaming. There is only 1 cooling fan to cool/vent the insides of this desktop computer. As the side panel is removable, I ended up adding 1 large cooling fan attached to the removable panel with detachable connections also to improve cooling/venting of this computer while it's in operation. It's a very quiet desktop with either 1 or 2 cooling fans, no doubt there. The PSU/Power Supply Unit for this desktop is not quite normal sized for an average desktop computer and is odd-sized and extremely hard to find in case it dies on you. I took the power supply unit from my prior Acer and kept it when I discarded the other Acer desktop.....along with the hard drive and memory chips from that older Acer computer too. As for the memory, mine came with 8 gbs of memory. I easily raised the memory to 24 gbs and it's a speedy desktop computer now. The hard drive is unique and first time I have had one in a desktop computer........512GB NVMe M.2 SSD which looks kind of like a small So-DIMM memory card. This also makes the computer fast to turn on/off and run. It really runs smooth, quiet and fast for the most part. It has HDMI port on the back side along with Ethernet port and at least 6 USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports. Other connections for sound and mic are on the computer's back side as well......which all of those ports and connections works just fine.
PROS:
>>512GB NVMe M.2 SSD
>>Very speedy and quiet computer
>>Plenty of USB ports, 2.0 & 3.0
>>DVD burner/player
>>Windows 10 with possible upgrade to Windows 11 [your choice but I stayed with Windows 10 for now]
>>Decent graphics and sound
>>AMD Ryzen 5 3400G
>>Easy to expand the DDR-4 memory up to 64 gbs
CONS:
>>My built in Microphone jack, headphone jack and SD card readers do not work at all [all up front]
>>DVD player/burner does not work most of the time
>>Odd-sized PSU/Power Supply Unit [very hard to find]
It's overall a decent desktop computer for basic home use/office use and light gaming. You can add graphics card to this desktop computer, but it's rather hard.
Despite the glaring defects I have on my Acer desktop here, I kept the unit and got external SD card reader and DVD player/burner and as long as those works on this computer [and they do work], this computer is my main computer until I get a newer computer down the road.
3 of 5 stars I rate it.
