Hasta La Gadget!

Here in the first few months after Microsoft introduced Windows 8 to the world, we’re still looking for the perfect set of homes for this touch-friendly operating system – and in the Dell XPS One 27 (Touch Screen enabled model 2710), we may have found the best all-in-one solution yet. This beast works with a 27-inch 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution (Quad HD) display ready for 10-finger touch on an articulating stand. This stand will allow you to move 60 degrees, nearly flat to an ever-so-slightly forward-leaning position – your choice!

Hardware

The Dell XPS One 27 is a machine that comes in several different iterations – and you may have seen it in the past without an articulating stand or a touchscreen. This version is the newest and, of course, greatest of the pack with a relatively massive 19.32 x 26.14 inch chassis with depth ranging from 1.25 inches to 2.82 inches. This beast has been called competition for the newest iMac, but as you’ll see in our iMac 27-inch (2012) review, aside from the “all-in-one” name, these computers are altogether different, essentially top to bottom.

This XPS monster weighs in at 35.16 pounds as you’ll see plainly in the hands-on video above. The neck is made to make the computer’s bulk feel light, and indeed it does – we’re able to easily tilt the display back and forth with one hand, no problem. Moving the display up and down will require a couple of hands to manage, but again you’ll have no trouble – it’s picking the whole machine up and moving it from table to table that’ll give you a back-ache, but since you’re only going to have this bulk in one place the whole time you own it, that shouldn’t be a problem.

The front of this machine has about an inch of bezel surrounding the display, a bit more than that at the bottom with an additional bit of casing under the glass that brings you down another inch. The display glass sits out and above the casing rather than being flush with it, this giving you the impression that it goes from left to right to top almost magically – not an easy feat and certainly appreciated in the final aesthetic. The back of the machine is a simple gray on the back, all hard plastic casing with the largest collection of ports sitting below the neck.

This set of ports includes four USB 3.0, HDMI out, HDMI in, SPDIF 1 (7.1 ch), and ethernet. On the right side of the machine you’ve got a disk drive for 12.7mm action, DVD+/-RW and BluRay Combo for your pleasure, HDD LED light, and a power button. On the other side you’ve got an 8 in 1 media card reader with support for SDXC (SD3.0), Secure Digital (SD), Multi Media Card (MMC), Hi Speed SD, Hi Capacity SD, Memory Stick (MS), Memory Stick PRO, and xD Picture Cards alike. Also on the left side you’ve got two more USB 3.0 ports that are Sleep Charge Capable – how about that?

Up on the front you’ve also got a set of four relatively hidden buttons that are capacitive and only appear when you tap them. The first two buttons increase and decrease the brightness of your display, the third controls the input of your display (if you’re using your HDMI-in, for example), and the last button will eject a disk from your disk drive, no questions asked. Each of these buttons is marked with an LED light that, again, only appears when you tap it.

The front-facing camera on this machine offers you the ability to speak with Skype (or whatever other video chat apps you like), extremely easy to use and decent at least for video chat in general. While you wont be recording any Hollywood-quality videos with this camera, it’s certainly nice to have as a given. It’s also relatively hidden from view if you don’t plan on using it all – no unrelenting design cues here!

Software and Performance

The machine we’ve got here works with Intel HD Integrated Graphics and NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M 2GB GDDR5, so you know good and well you’ll be packing high graphics power from top to bottom. While we’ve been drawn immediately and continuously to playing HD video as this machine cannot be denied as a great motion picture player, gaming is certainly a reality here right out of the box. You may want to pick up a few gaming-centric peripherals if you do want to go that route as wired may feel slightly more perfectly accurate than Bluetooth for mouse and keyboard action, the power under this hood is good to go.

Have a peek first at the system components included in this particular build, then see below the results of our standard benchmark test in Geekbench. Feel free to compare this score with past reviews of similar systems, keeping in mind that each system is indeed unique and benchmarks, no matter how accurate, show numbers, not your overall positive or negative experience.

Windows 8 is running as smoothly and as beautifully as we’ve ever seen it here on the Dell XPS One 27, making its case for what’s easily one of the most high-quality presentations of the operating system to date. Windows 8 is coming in to its own with more official full-screen and touch-optimized apps every day (see: Office 365 for example) and you’re sure to find yourself lost in exploration with this machine if not ready for full-on entertainment action from day one. Video looks great out of the box, graphics and settings can be optimized instantly with NVIDIA’s newest iteration of the GeForce Experience (still in Beta at the moment, but working great), and touchscreen action has never felt more natural.

Wrap-up

This machine will be costing you right around $1300 USD, and for that price you’re getting one beast of a computer. The Dell XPS One 27 with multi-touch display is easily one of the most solidly put together total packages running Windows 8 today, and makes us feel right at home with the touchscreen user interface immediately on startup. Dell has created a computer that makes us confident that touchscreen interfaces are indeed the future of home computing, especially in the entertainment realm – grab it now!

Dell XPS One 27 Review: a real touchscreen Windows 8 All-in-One hero is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

With version 5.4 of Facebook’s hero app for iOS you’ve got three big updates including in-app video recording and sharing, voice messaging, and an improved Nearby tab. With these improvements we’re seeing a Facebook that continues to become a one-stop-shop for every bit of web-based communication you do with your friends. Pretty soon there will be no need for any apps outside of Facebook (that is if all of your acquaintances are connected to the ecosystem as well, of course).

With Voice Messaging here on iOS we’ve got bits and pieces of what we’ve seen in the past, most recently with Voice Messaging for Facebook on Android. With version 2.1 of Facebook for Android we saw an extremely rare happening, that being Google’s mobile OS getting a feature in-app before the iOS version does – but there it is, and that’s how it happened. Now we’re all able to join in the fun with voice recordings sent via the messenger section inside the app on iOS, this building on the excellence of free voice calling for iPhone users inside the USA (and Canada.)

Next there’s an improved bit of action inside your Places Nearby tab including a new list of places that’ll really ring your bell. What you’re getting now (as opposed to every earlier iteration of the app) is a list of nearby places of business as well as landmarks listed in order of relevance. This list’s entries are added in order of relevance according to your interests as well as suggestions from your friends – it’s ice cream for us!

Finally there’s the ability to both record and share video inside the Facebook app. All you’ve got to do is create a new status with the camera button (as you normally would), and here in version 5.4 you’ll be able to work with video as well as photo content. One of the odd things here is that you’re taken to a gallery of media you’ve already got on your device first, with the option to move to your camera from there. This allows you to record video through Facebook, keep it on your smartphone (your iPhone in this case,) and upload it at will.

This also frees you up to work with the media you’ve photographed or taken video of with other apps, suggesting only second that you use Facebook’s own basic camera interface. The quality of the photos and video you upload is based entirely on the device you shoot it with. We’ve seen no real significant difference between the built-in camera app from Apple and the Facebook interface as far as end-quality – use whatever you wish!

This update is available now in the App Store for free for all users – you can update the app you’ve already got or download the app new, whatever you like, right this minute. Have a peek at the timeline below as well for more Facebook news from the extremely recent past – it’s a non-stop torrent of social networking action!

Facebook 5.4 for iOS Review: now with in-app video is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If backup and external storage had a hope of ever being fashionable, then Drobo would probably be the industry icon. Trying its level best to make data devilishly interesting since 2007, the company’s primary claim to fame from its glossy black obelisks is their packaging of drive redundancy to an audience who either doesn’t understand, or who doesn’t want to be bothered with, RAID definitions. Now, there’s the Drobo Mini, a compact version intended to take four drives mobile and give them a shot of SSD speed along the way. Read on for our full review.

Hardware

The Drobo lineage is clear in the Mini, though unlike its siblings it spreads its drives horizontally rather than vertically. At 7.3 x 7.1 x 1.8 inches it’s a squat square of matte and glossy black plastic, tipping the scales at 2.2 pounds without drives; that also doesn’t include the power brick, which is compact though still something to consider if you’re planning to make the Drobo Mini a mobile storage solution.

Up front there’s a magnetically-attached front cover, which hides four 2.5-inch drive bays. By switching from the more common 3.5-inch drives, as in the rest of the Drobo range, the company has been able to reduce size, noise, and power consumption (though since you provide the HDDs yourself, that will in part depend on which models you pick). However, it also places new limits on capacity, since 2.5-inch drives aren’t available in the same huge sizes as their bigger brethren.

In fact, 1TB is basically the maximum per drive, though since the Drobo Mini uses the company’s BeyondRAID data redundancy system, you won’t actually get 4TB of total storage even if you slot a full terabyte into each bay. Drobo has a useful calculator to figure out exactly what you’ll get, but if you stick to the 1TB maximum and expect complete data safety even if one of the drives dies, you’ll have 930GB to use with two HDDs installed, 1.81TB with three installed, and 2.72TB with all four occupied.

It’s worth noting that you needn’t install four drives of the same size: you can mix and match, then take advantage of Drobo’s auto-rebuilding of the array by swapping out a smaller drive for a larger version. Another option is dual disk redundancy – where the Drobo Mini can handle up to two drives failing simultaneously with no data loss – but then, with four 1TB HDDs installed, you’ll only have 1.8TB to use.

Fitting the drives themselves is incredibly straightforward: no caddies, rails, or other attachments, simply push the HDD in port-first and, like clicking a pen, it slots into place. No tools required, and swapping out a drive is as simple as clicking it in and pulling it free; you can even do it with the Drobo Mini running, and rebuilding the array begins automatically. Four green LED strips around the corners of the fascia correspond to the status of each drive, while status lights and a useful capacity gauge run along the bottom, showing you roughly how much space you have left.

However, there’s also a fifth bay, on the underside of the Drobo Mini, which takes an mSATA solid-state drive. These flash drives, having gained in popularity thanks to ultrabooks, basically offer a chunk of speedy storage in a small footprint, and work with what Drobo calls “data-aware tiering technology”; offered until now only on the company’s enterprise-spec B1200i, that uses an SSD cache to speed up file access by storing frequently accessed data (such as thumbnails) in a dedicated area of faster capacity. Drobo offers a $169 60GB mSATA, though you can shop around for a better deal, and using the bay is optional.

The Drobo Mini’s other surprise is a battery. Non-removable (but expected to last the lifetime of the unit, Drobo says) it works as an emergency power supply rather than as a true mobility provision: basically, if you lose AC power, the Drobo Mini is designed to have sufficient internal power to make sure all the data in use is stored safely before the drive switches off.

Ports are all on the back, sandwiched between two non-user-removable variable speed fans, which spin with a noticeable hum. As well as a single USB 3.0 port there are two Thunderbolt ports, the second Thunderbolt intended for daisy-chaining drives and other peripherals. The obvious omission – as with most of Drobo’s earlier products – is a network port, with the Mini really intended for use with a single machine at any one time.

Performance

We fitted the Drobo Mini with four 750GB Seagate Momentus drives, as well as a 32GB mSATA flash drive in the Drobo Accelerator Bay on the underside. Drobo’s Dashboard app – available for Windows and Mac – automatically builds the BeyondRAID array and uses the mSATA for caching.

Hooked up via Thunderbolt to a 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina display, itself with a 256GB Apple-fit flash drive, we saw transfer rates from the computer to the Drobo Mini of 98.12 MB/s when dealing with 5GB files. In the opposite direction, from Drobo Mini to Mac, that increases slightly to 101.1 MB/s.

Drobo includes USB 3.0, of course, for broader compatibility, though you’ll pay a penalty in speed: almost half of the rates, in fact. Transferring to the same MacBook Pro with Retina display over USB 3.0, we saw 62.71 MB/s, and then 53.1 MB/s sending 5GB files back from the Mini to the Mac.

Pricing and Value

Drobo has never been the cheap option for data storage, and the Drobo Mini doesn’t break with tradition. At $649 with no drives, it’s clearly on the expensive side for a portable storage caddy (though you do get both a USB 3.0 and a Thunderbolt cable included in the box). Factor in four 1TB HDDs at $80 apiece, and you’re looking at $969 and still having an empty accelerator bay. A quick look online turns up 64GB mSATA drives for around $70 (you can find slightly cheaper, lower capacity alternatives, as we did, but then you’ll see less benefit from the data-aware tiering technology), bringing the fully-loaded price to $1,039.

Count on another $49 if you want the official carrying case, and expect to spend a small fortune if you want to use SSDs rather than HDDs. With solid-state drives currently sitting at the $180 point for around 240GB, you’re looking at $1,679 for roughly 680GB of space, albeit blisteringly-fast space.

There are cheaper ways to use 2.5-inch drives. We’re fans of Synology’s DiskStation DS411slim, which is $300 empty. You don’t get an mSATA bay or the backup battery, and it uses gigabit ethernet rather than USB or Thunderbolt (there’s an eSATA port and two USB 2.0 ports, but they’re for adding extra capacity not directly hooking up to a computer), so data transfers are inevitably slower, and making it more suited to backup than for storing files you’re working on currently.

If Thunderbolt is a must-have, then there’s LaCie’s Little Big Disk, which uses the high-speed port and two preinstalled drives (either HDD or SSD depending on the model). The good-looking external drive isn’t inexpensive, however. The HDD-based model has a street price of roughly $319 for 1TB, though that’s combining two 500GB drives with no data redundancy; opt for single drive redundancy, and you’ll only have 500GB with no room for expansion. The SSD version comes in 512GB or 1TB capacities (street price from around $665), though again you’re looking at half that space if you want single-drive redundancy. There’s also no other connectivity, unlike the Drobo Mini’s USB 3.0, which makes accessing data tricky if you’re using one of the (many) computers that lacks Thunderbolt.

Wrap-Up

The Drobo Mini is wasted on backup. There are far cheaper ways to keep a safe copy of your digital life, and far more convenient methods than taking a single Drobo unit around every computer in your home or office and backing them up one at a time. If we’ve learned anything about backup, it’s that even the slightest hurdle to the process and users simply won’t do it; a set-and-forget NAS handles such duties far more readily.

Where the Drobo Mini succeeds, then, is in day-to-day use: solid data access rates, and the flexibility and convenience of the BeyondRAID system. As we’ve found with Thunderbolt drives before, the Drobo Mini is sufficiently swift that you can effectively treat it as another internal drive, keeping project files – whether photo, music, or video editing, or something else – stored externally, rather than having to copy them onto your main drive and then archive them again afterwards.

That makes particular sense when you consider the shifts we’re seeing in computing, particularly from Apple (though arguably where the Mac goes, the PC tends to follow), with traditional HDDs phased out in favor of faster solid-state memory with generally smaller capacities. A $1k loaded Drobo Mini starts to look far more flexible in comparison to a factory-fit storage upgrade for a new Mac, and the external drive is sufficiently portable that you could drop it into your laptop bag alongside your MacBook Pro and set up a powerful studio wherever there’s an AC socket spare. That balance of performance, flexibility, and data security puts the Drobo Mini into a category of its own, and while not the cheapest external storage, you do get plenty for your money.

Drobo Mini Review is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Flagship smartphones may get us talking, but it’s mass market devices like the HTC One SV that get huge sales, and that’s just what UK 4G trailblazer EE needs to help push LTE to the mainstream. HTC’s mid-range Android ticks some high-end boxes, with its 4G support and slick design, but there are compromises in the mixture too, in order to hit a more affordable price point. Is the One SV the LTE Android for the everyman? Read on for our full review.

Hardware and Design

For a mid-range handset, HTC has done a decent job with the One SV’s physical design. The back cover – removable, unlike many recent HTC phones – has the same soft-touch finish as we know from the 8X and One S, despite being plastic, while the scratch-proof Corning Gorilla Glass 2 up-front has smoothly curved edges which help the slightly angular sides nestle nicely into the palm of your hand.

Front and center is the One SV’s 4.3-inch display, using an LCD2 panel as per many other models in HTC’s range. It’s a bright panel, with decent viewing angles, but its resolution puts it at a disadvantage: at WVGA 800 x 480, it’s behind the qHD models in the same sort of price bracket, and leagues behind the 720p and 1080p displays other phones use (including HTC’s own DROID DNA, which has an excellent Full HD screen). The result is graininess from the clearly visible pixels, most noticeable when in the browser or viewing photos or video.

There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top, alongside the power/standby button, while a microUSB port is on the bottom edge and a volume rocker on the right. We were slightly surprised by how slippery the One SV could be; placed face down, it quickly found a route off the edge of our sofa and onto the floor, though happily resisted the bump. On the plus side, it’s easily dropped into a pocket, and at 128 x 66.9 x 9.2 mm and 122g isn’t unduly bulky. The matte white back cover did pick up dirt and smudges easily, however, while the broad, ridged earpiece spanning most of the top bezel was an instant fluff magnet.

As for what’s inside the casing, the One SV runs Android on a 1.2GHz Qualcomm S4 dual core processor, with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of onboard storage. There’s triband UMTS/HSPA (up to 42Mbps down and 5.76Mbps up, network permitting) and quad band GSM/EDGE along with the LTE, together with WiFi a/b/g/n (2.4/5GHz), Bluetooth 4.0 (with aptX support), and NFC. A digital compass, GPS, GLONASS, accelerometer, proximity sensor, and light sensor round out the key features.

On the back, a nugget of metal surrounds the 5-megapixel camera and LED flash. As per previous phones, HTC uses a backside-illuminated (BSI) sensor for improved low-light performance, along with an F2.0 aperture, 28mm lens. The front camera runs at 1.6-megapixels, and shoots 720p HD video compared to the 1080p Full HD supported on the back. HTC slots in its dedicated ImageChip for pre-JPEG-conversion processing and swifter back-to-back photography.

While One X+ and 8X owners have to make do with what storage HTC gives them (or what they can muster from the cloud), those picking up a One SV can slot in a microSD card instead. Up to 64GB cards are supported; the removable cover also means you can switch out the 1,800 mAh battery, handy given that LTE can be a power-hog.

Software and Performance

If the display resolution is HTC’s first real goof with the One SV, the version of Android the smartphone runs is definitely the second. Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich is loaded, complete with HTC Sense 4.1, an inexplicable decision given Jelly Bean has been around since mid-2012. It’s Android as we know and, generally speaking, love, though you miss out on Project Butter’s interface-smoothing magic, and that’s a real shame on a handset already running mid-tier hardware.

Sense remains a mixed bag, certainly distinctive but feeling more than a little over-designed, certainly when compared to the crisp, near-minimalist simplicity of pure Android. First-time smartphone owners should find it reasonably user-friendly, however, and HTC preloads a number of applications, including Dropbox (which prompts you to set up an account and auto-sync your photos and videos with the cloud), Evernote, a video editing app, 7digital for music downloads, a flashlight, and others, most of which are familiar from a long line of HTC devices.

Familiarity is good, but we’re not convinced custom manufacturer skins and Android still make sense (excuse the pun), at least for users. HTC’s interface may help it differentiate from other Android OEMs, but it also introduces delays in owners receiving core OS updates. Given the One SV is a step or two behind on that front already, it means Sense is hardly welcome.

The other differentiator is Beats Audio, though the One SV doesn’t get the power-amps of more expensive HTC devices. Instead, it’s more of a custom equalizer, ramping up the sound – particularly the bass frequencies – in a way that suits dance, RnB, and other genres, but conversely mangles classical and jazz. Thankfully it can be turned off in HTC’s reskinned settings page.

The 1.2GHz dualcore S4 processor may not be the fastest chip around any more, but it’s capable enough for everyday use. We ran Quadrant, the Android benchmarking tool, and the One SV scored 4446, putting it just short of the HTC One X (which has a 1.5GHz quadcore).

Camera

Even for the midrange, 5-megapixels is beginning to look conservative, though we’re the first to admit that a good sensor performs beyond the sheer number of pixels it collects. Unfortunately, despite HTC’s choice of BSI chip and lens pairing, the One SV’s camera performance is middle-of-the-road.

It’s not that the camera isn’t fast; it loads quickly (though we’d still like a dedicated camera key on the side, as HTC’s Windows Phones get) and captures frames right when you tap the on-screen control. Simultaneous photo and video capture is supported, with both buttons shown at once, and if you keep your finger pressed on the shutter release, the One SV will keep snapping at 4fps until you’ve taken 60 shots.

No, what lets the One SV down is the fact that the resulting photos and video simply aren’t that great. The stark scenes of snowy London certainly weren’t the easiest of things to capture, but the HTC’s camera struggled unduly with contrast and exposure, shedding detail by the handful as it tried to balance the brighter and darker elements of the frame. Meanwhile, points of brighter color – the red “STOP” sign, for instance – lost their vitality as the One SV opted for a more muted reproduction.

Close-ups proved a little more impressive, with the One SV able to lock onto nearby subjects with accuracy, but again color temperature proved troublesome. Holding the camera still, we watched as the preview flipped between warm and cool settings, making capturing a decent frame a matter of perfect timing in hitting the button.

As for video, there’s some judder in the frame and the same exposure issues as affected stills show themselves in footage, too. Clips can be grainy, and colors flat and muted.

Phone and Battery

The One SV’s sizeable earpiece makes for loud calls, and our callers had no issues hearing us or being heard. Calls are only made over 2G/3G networks, not EE’s 4G LTE network (as per the UK model we were reviewing; in the US, the One SV is a Cricket exclusive), and you lose 4G connectivity for data while on a voice call.

LTE performance unsurprisingly varies depending on where you live; EE’s fledgling network has huge ambitions, but so far is limited to denser-populated patches of major cities. With only one bar showing out in London’s Zone 2, we saw high speeds of around 13Mbps down and up to 17Mbps up, though EE is certainly capable of faster. Still, it’s worth remembering that 4G isn’t the magic bullet for mobile data today, and in fact HSPA+ networks can still outshine it in some locations.

The mid-range specifications translate to only moderate draw on the battery, as long as you don’t make too much use of the LTE connection. HTC rates the One SV as good for up to 8hrs talk time or 12 days of standby, though it’s worth noting that those are 3G figures.

In practice, with push email turned on, automatic photo uploads, some media streaming and local playback, a little web browsing, GPS in Google Maps, and Facebook/Twitter checking, we got a day out of the One SV. Turn on the mobile hotspot, however, which allows you to share the HTC’s 3G/4G connection with WiFi-tethered devices like your laptop, and you’ll see the phone exhausted far quicker.

Pricing and Value

SIM-free, the HTC One SV will set you back £350 in the UK; Cricket will sell it to you, off contract, for $349, and then offer you month-to-month service on a rolling agreement. EE, meanwhile, will give you the One SV free upfront, if you’re willing to spend at least £36 per month over a two-year agreement. That only includes 500MB of data, mind; figure on spending £41 or £46 per month if you want 1GB or 3GB respectively.

Overall, then, it’s a cheap phone with expensive service, at least in the UK. Factor in that EE will sell you a Samsung Galaxy S III on the same monthly contract, albeit with a £49.99 one-time payment for the device, and the One SV starts to look out of place.

Wrap-up

You can certainly see HTC’s strategy: make a neatly styled, midrange device that balances battery life with the usefulness of 4G, and help push LTE connectivity out of the premium tier. Unfortunately, some of the company’s decisions – or, perhaps, the corners cut in order to meet the target price – take their toll on the One SV proposition overall.

We could live with the last-gen processor, and even the WVGA display only really proved glaringly disappointing when viewing media, but the lackluster camera is a serious blip. HTC first debuted its ImageChip technology with research suggesting mobile photography was one of the key factors buyers weighed in picking a new phone; unfortunately, that’s where the One SV falls most short.

Couple that – in the UK at least – with some expensive tariff pricing from EE that puts an altogether more appealing handset within easy reach, and the HTC One SV loses more of its shine. It’s not a bad device, but it demands too many compromises from cutting-edge users tempted by 4G, and can’t compete on price with more affordable HSPA+ phones on other networks.

HTC One SV Review is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Today we’re going to be taking a look at the new Acer Predator AG3260 gaming PC. While “gaming PC” and “Acer” may not be two terms you immediately associate with one another, Acer has impressed in the past, and is now looking to wow consumers with its Predator G series of computers. In fact, we’ve reviewed a computer that’s quite similar to this one before, only now the Predator is back with Windows 8 and some slightly different hardware. The problem with building a gaming rig is still the same as always, though: PC gamers can be a fickle bunch, with the most hardcore not paying any attention to pre-built machines and instead building their own rigs. That isn’t an option for everyone, so can the Predator AG3620 offer enough to be worthy of those gamers’ dollars? Read on to find out.

Design

Acer has been putting out some good looking PCs lately, and the Predator AG3620 is no different. The black case has a pair of colored stripes running along the front and the top, with the word “Predator” emblazoned on both sides of the PC. The Predator only sports a mid-size case, which isn’t something we’re used to seeing in a gaming rig. Normally, full-size cases are the standard, given the large amount of equipment you need to pack into it.

At any rate, that mid-size case makes the Predator smaller than other gaming rigs, meaning it can fit into tighter spaces. It’s also surprisingly light for a tower PC – I had no problem lifting and carrying it, though admittedly weight isn’t usually an issue for a computer that will spend most of its life in the same place.

On the front is obviously where the DVD drive is, with two more bays for additional expansions in the future. The front-facing ports have all been moved to the top of the tower, with two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, the headphone jack, and the microphone jack all arranged in a neat little line behind the power button. Speaking of the power button, that’s what will draw your attention when you look at the top of the machine, as it’s big, red, and triangular – almost like one of those caution signs that warn you of rough driving ahead or other upcoming hazards.

Around the back, you’ll find more USB ports. There are six additional USB ports, to be exact, with four more USB 2.0 and two more USB 3.0. There’s also VGA and DVI ports, along with two HDMI ports. You’ve got the standard audio jacks underneath the additional USB ports, jacks for a mouse and keyboard, and an RJ-45 port for 10/100/1000 Gigabit LAN.

Essentially, the ports are what you’d expect from any other gaming rig, though the Predator’s case is a bit louder than other PC cases. That isn’t a bad thing, as I have to say I like the overall look of the Predator. It may not be big, but it doesn’t need to be – all of the computer’s hardware fits nicely inside the case, and as I said above, that smaller form factor means it isn’t going to take up a lot of room when you get it home. As far as design goes, the Predator AG3260 is a winner.

Hardware

I need to start this section right off by saying that you’re not getting the best of the best with the AG3260 in terms of hardware. If you want a rig that’s packed with the highest-end equipment, you better start looking elsewhere because the Predator isn’t the machine you want. That being said, the Predator is packed with excellent or otherwise good hardware, as any gaming rig should be.

The third-gen Intel Core i7-3370 CPU is definitely the star of this show. Initially it’s clocked at 3.4GHz, though the computer can turn that clock speed up to 3.9GHz using Intel’s Turbo Boost technology. That may not be necessary when gaming due to the fact that the graphics card will cause a bottleneck, but it’s nice to have the option nonetheless. Of course, we expect an Intel Core i7 in a gaming rig – anything less and it couldn’t really be considered a gaming rig, after all. Still, it’s great to have it along for the ride, and as you’ll see a bit later, the Core i7 has no problem posting excellent scores in benchmark tests.

The Predator AG3620 also comes equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce GT630, which definitely isn’t the best graphics card NVIDIA has on offer. It’s still a relatively powerful GPU, but it would have been nice to see a card that’s even slightly more powerful. Don’t get me wrong, the GeForce GT630 will do its part to keep visuals looking good, but I feel like it’s going to cause some issues with bottlenecking, especially if Turbo Boost cranks the i7 up to 3.9GHz.

You should be set with the 12GB of DDR3 RAM the AG3620 ships with for quite some time, and here’s another area that Acer decided to make a few small cuts to save some money. With a lot of pre-built gaming rigs these days, it isn’t uncommon to see 16GB of RAM. Truth is, when it comes to gaming, we don’t need 16GB of RAM just yet, so 12GB should get the job done. You’ll probably need to add a bit more at some point down the road, but for now, there doesn’t seem to be anything lost with having 12GB of RAM instead of 16.

For internal storage, Acer has paired a 128GB SSD with a 2TB 7200RPM SATA HDD. I have to say that I’m a pretty big fan of the SSD/HDD hybrid setup, and with Windows 8 loaded onto the SSD, boot up and shut down times are sometimes surprisingly fast. Of course, you’ll run out of space pretty quickly if you try to pack everything on the SSD, but between that and the HDD, you should have plenty of space for your game library.

Sadly, you’ve only got a 16X DVD+R/RW drive, which means no Blu-Ray. That Blu-Ray functionality is definitely missed, considering the Predator AG3620 would be a computer that has no problem playing back HD video, but again, Acer decided to ditch the Blu-Ray drive to keep the price low. You could always swap the DVD drive out for a Blu-Ray drive, however, and since Blu-Ray aren’t super expensive these days, it might not be a bad idea to order one alongside your computer. As far as wireless connectivity is concerned, you’ll have 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 to look forward to.

While the hardware on the inside generally ranges from good to excellent, the keyboard and mouse don’t fall into that stretch. For PC gamers – this computer’s target audience – the keyboard and mouse are going to disappoint. Packed in with the Predator is a two-button optical mouse with a scroll wheel, so if you play FPS or MMO games, you’ll probably want a mouse with more buttons or adjustable DPI settings.

Just the same, you’ll probably want to swap the keyboard out for one made specifically for gamers. The keyboard again is standard fare, though I will say that the keys do have an interesting look. They also make a nice clicking sound like mechanical keyboards, but the problem here is that the spacing seems just a little bit off. Maybe it’s all in my head, but the keys seem slightly further apart than keys on other keyboards. Whether it’s just a personal hang up or not, I was making all kinds of errors while using the keyboard that comes packed with the computer. Hook up your gaming mouse and keyboard instead, because the equipment included with the Predator isn’t stuff you want to use for competitive gaming.

Software

The Predator comes running Windows 8 64-bit, which is bound to be a sore point with some gamers. While I don’t mind Windows 8, I know there are plenty out there who do. If you don’t have a touch monitor, some of the usefulness of Windows 8 will be lost, but all in all, I don’t see much of a problem with having the OS on the Predator. At the end of the day, it’ll all come down to personal preference.

Of course, with Windows 8 on board, you’ll have plenty of Microsoft’s apps from the start. This line up includes Internet Explorer, which I suggest you skip altogether, along with standard Windows 8 apps like People, Weather, News, Maps, and SkyDrive. All of the pre-installed Windows 8 apps vary in usefulness, but one of the main draws of the OS is that you can use the Store to download new apps for your start screen.

Acer has also included some pre-installed apps of its choosing, with Cut the Rope, Acer Explorer, Evernote, and Kindle present from the start. Both Hulu Plus and Netflix come pre-installed on the Predator, so if you have accounts with either of those streaming services, you can begin using them right away without the need for a download. McAfee is there to annoy you from the very first time you start up your computer, while Amazon and eBay also come pre-installed, giving online shoppers to portals to jump in immediately.

Others, like AcerCloud and Spotify will be appreciated by some users, but most will probably want to do a little bit of clean up once they get their Predator out of the box. Everything on the computer seems to be installed on the SSD, so deleting the apps you don’t want becomes even more important. Keep in mind, though, that you’ll have 1.79TB of free storage on the HDD, so you’ve got plenty of extra space to go a little crazy with your downloads.

Gaming and Benchmarks

After describing the hardware that’s in this rig, most PC enthusiasts already know what the benchmark results are going to say. In Geekbench, the Predator netted a score of 16152 – we’ve seen gaming computers score much higher than that, but the Predator’s score shows that its still a reasonably powerful machine. Similarly, in Cinebench the computer took home an OpenGL framerate of 26.72 fps while the CPU test awarded a score 7.44.

These results say the same thing: while the Predator isn’t the most powerful computer on the block, it still has some solid hardware working under the hood. That will ultimately get gamers who care first and foremost about gorgeous visuals without thinking about cost to turn the other way. However, for gamers who can settle for a decently powerful rig in exchange for a lower price point, the Predator probably isn’t going to disappoint.

Gaming seems to be a matter of compromise sometimes. Do you want games to run at 60 frames per second, or do you want to crank all of the graphics features up as high as they go? On most modern games, you won’t be able to do both, but you will be able to find a happy medium. In Skyrim, for instance, turning all of the graphics settings to ultra (which includes 16x antisotropic filtering and 8x antialiasing) and setting the resolution to 1080p produces a frame rate that rarely leaves the teens. At this point, the game is still playable, but stutters and slowdowns quickly wear on the nerves.

On the other hand, by flipping the switch from ultra to high – which brings antisotropic filtering down to 8 samples – we get better results. At these settings, the game runs right around 30 frames per second, sometimes dropping below that point when you’re in outdoor areas with a lot to see, and other times rising above when you’re indoors. That isn’t bad, considering that most console games run at 30 frames per second. The difference here is that on high settings, Skyrim looks much better than its console counterpart. If you can accept console-quality frame rate, you’ll still get a good looking experience.

The same is true for Batman: Arkham City. Bringing the resolution up to 1080p, turning FXAA to high, switching the detail level to very high, and turning on most of the eye candy features like dynamic shadows and reflection, we get right around 30 frames per second in-game. The frame rate will sometimes fluctuate between 25 and 30 fps, less frequently dropping down below 25, but almost never going below 20. Some may not like hearing that, but for me, the frame rate wasn’t really an issue. It should be noted, however, that DirectX 11 features and tessellation had to be turned off to get that frame rate, so that may be a sacrifice some players aren’t willing to make.

Unfortunately, if we move up to more recent games, the Predator begins struggling a bit. By playing Far Cry 3 with DirectX 9 and medium settings across the board, we get a frame rate that likes to linger in the low teens. There are times when it will jump up into the toward the 20s, but a low frame rate like that might turn some gamers off. Ultimately, the GeForce GT630 had some issues with Far Cry 3, but then again, titles like Ubisoft’s latest demand some serious hardware before you can get excellent visuals at an acceptable frame rate.

Wrap-Up

In many ways, I’m torn when it comes time to decide whether or not the Predator AG3620 deserves a recommendation. It’s true that the computer struggled with Far Cry 3, but with Arkham City and Skyrim, the results were pretty good. The fact that you can find the Predator AG3620 for around $1000 helps sweeten the deal quite a bit, but at that point, you might be better off spending a little bit more in return for a better GPU.

As it is, the Predator is a capable gaming rig, it just isn’t exceptional. It may be worth a purchase for gamers who want a solid gaming PC foundation and won’t mind upgrading their graphics card in a year or so. All the same, if you don’t mind giving the most graphics-intensive games a pass (or, alternatively, are willing to put up with playing them at low or medium settings), then the Predator is a decent, relatively inexpensive choice.

If you’re a PC gamer primarily for the amazing graphics that are achievable, it’s probably best to look elsewhere. Naturally, if it’s top-tier graphics quality you want, you’ll probably be building your own rig, and the Predator was never targeted at you in the first place. In the end, if you’re the type who thinks that graphics aren’t everything, or you’re looking for a somewhat cheap way of giving the PC gaming world a spin, the Predator may be worthy of consideration – but only if you’re willing to make some compromises.

Acer Predator AG3620 Review is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
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