Acer America launched on Wednesday a new AIO desktop PC focused on high-quality music playback, the Z3-605 series. They're packed with two front-facing Harman Kardon 3 watt speakers that "accurately produce crystal-clear audio that's as close to the original recording as possible." The speakers are backed by Dolby Home Theater v4 that delivers music, movies and games in dynamic surround sound.
"Integrating Harman Kardon speakers is an important milestone and showcases Acer innovation and technology leadership," said Frank Chang, director of desktop product management for Acer America. "Acer is the first in the market to bring Harman Kardon premium sound to a mainstream all-in-one desktop, setting a new standard."
Acer's website shows that the company is offering four models: the AZ3-605-UR20 for $699.99, the AZ3-605-UR21 for $799.99, the AZ3-605-UR22 for $899.99, and the AZ3-605-UR23 for $999.99. All four sport a 23 inch Hull HD IPS display with viewing angles up to 178 degrees, but only select models offer 10-point multi-touch input with hand recognition software.
According to Acer, all four sport an ergonomic chassis with a 10 to 30 degree adjustment. There's also an integrated 1MP webcam, capable of 720p image capture, which can be adjusted between 0 and 20 degrees. A unique, capsule-shape port bay on the front groups together the on-screen display button, SD card reader, a USB 3.0 port and a 2-in-1 combo audio jack.
All four models also pack HDMI input for connecting a set-top box or game console, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, an integrated SuperMulti optical drive, Gigabit Ethernet, Wireless N and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, and a 1 TB 7200 RPM HDD connected via a SATA 3 interface. Intel HD Graphics seems to be the GPU of choice for all four models.
Naturally all four have different CPU and memory configurations. The cheapest AIO in the bunch, the AZ3-605-UR20, has an Intel Pentium 2127U dual-core processor clocked at 1.9 GHz (2 MB of cache) and 6 GB of DDR3 memory ( 16 GB max). The top-of-the-line model, Acer's AZ3-605-UR23, has an Intel Core i5-3337U dual core processor clocked at 1.8 GHz (3 MB of cache) and 8 GB of DDR3 memory (16 GB max).
The specs also show that the AZ3-605-UR21 sports the same Pentium CPU as the UR20 and only 4 GB of DDR3 memory, but it's more expensive because of the 10-point touch input and hand motion software. The UR22 model bumps the processor up a notch while retaining the 10-point touch input, software and RAM amount, using an Intel core i3-3220 dual-core CPU clocked at 3.3 GHz (3 MB of cache) instead. Apparently the only model in this foursome without 10-point touch input is the $699.99 UR20 model.
So there you go: four new Windows 8 AIO desktops with a decent set of hardware for movie buffs and casual gamers. This new series should pop up in retail soon, otherwise head here to grab one directly from Acer.
