Home > Consumer Reviews > Acer Aspire L310 Small Form Factor, Intel Core 2 Duo 4400, 2.0GHz, 320GB HDD, 1024MB, DDR DVDRW, Keyboard, Mouse, Vista Home Premium plus 19" Wide Monitor

This is a great computer package and excellent value. Was a bit nervous about getting an item with no other customer reviews but took a chance and am glad I did.
It comes with a slinky little hardrive (that looks kind of cheap in the photo), but isn't. The monitor is flatscreen and the keyboard and mouse are cordless. It took me a little while to figure how to set these up but is actually really simple -
Put batteries in your keyoard and mouse-Put the little stick with the connect button into your USB port-Press connect-Press connect on the back of your keyboard and then back of your mouse and that is it.
The reason I have explained this is beacuse the only bad feature about this package is it's lack of instructions. It's ok if you kind of know your way around a computer, but if this is your first ever one it could have been a little bit tricky. There was a ton of info on the monitor and speakers, both of which I think require no explanation, and no info on the hard drive, keyboard and mouse, all of which I had to fiddle about with! But don't let this put you off what is an excellent buy.
The only other thing I would note is that it comes with Windows Vista and my BT Voyager 105 modem was not compatible with Vista so had to purchase a Netgear modem router seperatly - and my Lexmark P706 printer isn't compatible either so will have to purchase a new one of those too!
This is not this computer packages fault, Vista is the way of future (apparently!)

Bought this a week back from Amazon, delivered real quick even with Super Saver shipping.

Set-up - Does not need much effort to set up. The Vista compatibility issues looks like largely sorted out, worked just fine with my HP printer and BT Home Hub wireless kit. Thankfully it does come with a page instruction on the wireless mouse and keyboard (note, Amazon wrongly says it has a PS2 keyboard). Nice touch to include the Duracell batteries for the mouse and keyboard. In short has all the cables etc. to be up and running quickly.

Good - it's small and light, which was important to move between 3 different locations. It is silent much of the time. There's a separate 19v DC power unit which can be useful if you want to warm your feet soles ;-)

The included LCD (Acer AL1916W model) 19" screen is adequate. The CPU base unit has a DVI output but the included LCD has only analog input, might have been good to pair it up with a DVI screen (though don't think Acer make any!).
The separate speaker set has decent (if a little flat) sound as well. Have not tried the surround output.

Bad - some of my older audio and data CDs are being rejected completely or being partially read. Don't know if it's the CDs or the drive, have to watch it more! Note : it has a slot loading drive, not a tray loading one where you place the disc on the tray. For a new PC it's not really fast, though not slow either, blame it on Vista and the 1GB memory(?)

Software - has the basics, don't see much point of the touted Acer security software. I quickly downloaded the Google pack (with Norton security, Picasa, Star Office etc.), Grisoft AVG Free and Spybot Search and Destroy. There's Vista Home premium and MS Works.

Hope this helps to other potential buyers.