Acer sends mini PC into the living room

By Tony Smith in Hannover • Get more from this author

16th March 2007 10:50 GMT

CeBIT Acer is to offer a living room-friendly version of its business-oriented mini PC, the Veriton 1000, the manufacturer revealed today.

The standard Veriton is a compact, slimline system designed for call-centre desks and the like. But an Aspire-branded version with the management features swapped out for consumer-targeted components like a digital and analogue TV tuner, and five-in-one memory card reader will hit the market soon.

The home model, the L320, will be offered with a variety of processors, from Intel's Pentium 4 up to the Core 2 Duo, up to 2GB of 667MHz DDR 2 memory and up to 400GB of hard drive capacity. Every model's graphics will be driven by an integrated Intel GMA3000 GPU. It has 7.1-channel HD audio on board.

Acer Aspire L320 - front Acer Aspire L320 - side

The L320 has Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11b/g on board. It has USB, Firewire and digital audio ports for connecting peripherals, and different models will come with either a USB or wireless keyboard and mouse. Some versions will ship with a remote control.

Acer pledged the compact, three-litre machine is whisper-quiet, though it admitted that's when the machine is idling, not when it's running flat out.

The L320 line will also be accompanied by the L100 series, based on AMD processors, Nvidia chipsets and many of the same features as the Intel incarnation.

Acer didn't when the L100s and L320s will hit the shops, or how much they will cost.