First Nvidia Ion Nettop is the Acer AspireRevo

Acer is the first out of the gate with a nettop based off of Nvidia’s Ion chipset design.

Nvidia told us last week to expect an Ion-based system to be shipping sometime this quarter. Now just a week later, Acer debuts the AspireRevo, the first commercial nettop based on the Nvidia Ion.

"The AspireRevo is small and quiet enough to go anywhere. … It's perfectly suited for the living room, because Nvidia Ion provides a brilliant graphics experience with digital photos, watching video, and playing family-friendly games," said Gianpiero Morbello, corporate vice president of marketing for Acer.

The HDMI output and low power, low noise nature of the AspireRevo makes it an affordable HTPC consideration for those looking for a quick drop-in solution. One potential worry point is that our reference Ion from Nvidia had an optical audio out, but we can't seem to spot one on the AspireRevo. As far as we know, the GeForce 9400M can't pass audio out through HDMI. With dimensions measuring 7.1-inches square and 1.2-inches thick, it’s sleek enough.

"The Acer AspireRevo with our new Nvidia Ion GPU is so small and powerful it's unbelievable," said Dan Vivoli, senior vice president of marketing at Nvidia.

The so-called ‘Ion GPU’ Vivoli is referring to is the GeForce 9400M chipset that’s found in the current generation iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook and select PC notebooks. What makes the 9400M stand out on the Ion is the wings it grants the modest Atom processor to play back high-definition content and some light 3D gaming.

"Watch Blu-ray movies and HD movie trailers, or clean up jerky, dim cell phone videos for internet streaming. This is the perfect PC for today's consumers," Vivoli added.

We won’t know how much Acer’s nettop deviates from the Nvidia Ion reference platform, but so far it looks very similar. Acer hasn’t revealed a release date or pricing, but we’ll keep you posted.