Acer breathed some Windows 8-shaped life into two of its desktop series Thursday, the Aspire ME and Aspire XC.
The ME's "micro towers" come in two sizes and are aimed at those who want a "power-packed workhorse" with tons of room for upgrades.
On the other hand, Acer's small form factor XC Series desktops were built for anyone without a lot of room to spare.
"We've retooled our latest Aspire desktops to deliver ample power and practical features in a stylish, understated chassis that will appeal to a wide range of users," said Irene Chan, senior business manager of consumer desktops for Acer America, in a company press release.
"Combined with Windows 8, the new Acer desktops are ideal for use as a central entertainment hub for an entire household as well as a student requiring a robust system for homework and social media."
Yee-haw
Dubbed, as Acer said, a workhorse, the ME Series offers room for expansion and excels at handling advanced applications.
Chief among those is providing rich HD entertainment, though beauty can be found on the body of the system itself as Acer's given the ME a recessed deck topped with a non-slip surface.
Two USB 2.0 ports and dual USB 3.0 ports for smartphone and camera charging, as well as "handy" cable management and microphone and headphone jacks are also part of the ME's makeup.
Customers can pick a ME up with either an Intel Core i7 or Core i5 processor. Combined memory equates to 10GB DDR3 that is also expandable to 16GB, while brag-worthy 2TB hard drives accompany the top.
Discrete graphics are also available on some models.
Me, me, me
Acer endowed the ME Series with two open PCI-E x1 slots for adding sound, graphics or a RAID card and an open PCI x16 slot for a slip-in video card.
Two 3.5-inch "easy swap" expansion bays are accessible without having to crack open the chassis or chip at it with a tool.
An optical drive bay is available, and the ME comes equipped with Bluetooth 4.0 HS for wireless peripheral connection and hook ups to digital devices.
As if the ports it already had weren't enough, Acer also gave the ME four USB 3.0 ports and eight USB 2.0 ports plus an HDMI and VGA port.
XCellent
The XC Series boils down to just a third the size of a traditional PC, Acer claimed, meaning the apparatus takes up as little room as possible.
An Intel Core i3 2130 processor, 6GB memory and 1TB in hard drives mark up the XC's specs.
Press an eject button and the optical drive flips open while an HDMI port allows for connectivity with a single cable and up to eight USB 2.0 ports can latch on to printers, external storage, digital cameras and more.
In this together
A considerate little feature Acer threw in both desktops are buttons placed on the front and top of the black chassis bodies, making the PCs left and right hand neutral (no more awkward reach-arounds).
The redesigned chassis also prevents cables from becoming a tangled mess thanks to improved wire management.
Two stereo speakers, a keyboard and mouse are included in the price of both systems, as well as the SuperMulti optical drive.
Acer asking for a starting price of $649.99 for the ME Series while the XC kicks off at $399.99. Both drop on leading U.S. retailers Oct. 26 and each comes with a one-year warranty.
