Acer Aspire M3800-U3802A review

Juice box

Acer Aspire M3800-U3802A
Off (watts)	1.54
Sleep (watts)	2.88
Idle (watts)	42.82
Load (watts)	70.04
Raw (annual kWh)	170.6448
Energy Star compliant	Yes
Annual operating cost (@$0.1135/kWh)	$19.37

Even though we found the Acer's performance to be on the slow side of the budget PC scale, at least you get lower power consumption in exchange for its reduced speed. Paying less than $20 a year to power a computer is certainly reasonable, and it's not until you get down to Nettop territory that the annual power costs get much lower.

Acer's support is not as strong as some of its competitors. Gateway, which is actually a subsidiary company to Acer, has 24-7 toll-free support, whereas Acer's phones are only open from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST, Monday to Friday, and from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. PT on weekends. You do at least get a year of parts and labor warranty protection, as well as a handful of troubleshooting tips and other support help on Acer's Web site.

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System configurations:

Acer Aspire M3800-U3802A
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.5GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200; 4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 32MB (shared) Intel GMA X4500 integrated graphics chip; 640MB 7,200rpm hard drive

Asus Essentio CM5570-AP002
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.6GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300; 6GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 32MB (shared) Intel GMA X4500 integrated graphics chip; 640MB 7,200rpm hard drive

Dell Inspiron 537s-002B
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.5GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200; 4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 32MB (shared) Intel GMA X4500 integrated graphics chip; 640GB 7,200rpm hard drive

Gateway SX2800-01
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.3GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200; 4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 32MB (shared) Intel GMA X4500 integrated graphics chip; 640GB 7,200rpm hard drive

HP Pavilion p6110y
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.6GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300; 6GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 128MB (shared) Intel GMA 3100 integrated graphics chip; 640MB 7,200rpm hard drive