Acer has been around for a while, and is known for cost-effective computer systems. With all-in-one computing solutions having high popularity in businesses and homes for their simplicity and reduced cabling and clutter, Acer has a variety of entries in this genre of computing solutions, and today we're taking a look at the Acer Veriton Z2640G AIO.

The Specs

This AIO comes in an attractive and simple form factor, with two feet installed at the bottom corners to lift the frame up off the desk, allowing cables to pass underneath the monitor if desired. If you choose to mount the system on a stand or VESA mounting system, the feet can be easily removed to clean up the look.

The unit ships with either a dual core Celeron 1007U processor or the upgraded dual-core Pentium 2117U, both of which are Ivy Bridge chips in the 17W mobile categories. The review unit we received had the faster Pentium core running at 1.8 GHz; 4 GB of DDR3 memory (expandable to 16 GB); a 500 GB Seagate Momentus 5,400 RPM SATA hard drive; and a 19-inch 1600x900 LED-backlit display powered by Intel HD graphics.

The case has a matte, slightly textured finish that's attractive and won't show fingerprints nearly as much as a glossy finish. Supporting the unit is a tiltable frame stand, whose angle adjusts from 6-60 degrees and is spring-loaded to return to the smallest angle when the system is lifted.

The power button, monitor on/off and brightness control are tucked under the right front edge of the bezel, and three indicator lights (for power, network activity and disc activity) are positioned next to it. The blue LEDs for the indicators are small and not too bright - good enough to get a sense of what your machine is doing, but not obnoxious. A nice design. I actually see more of the LED light in the reflection of the glass-top table I use than directly from the LED.

The system comes with both a wired 1000baseT Ethernet connector and 802.11a/b/g/n wireless networking. On the demo system sent to us for evaluation, the wireless component was not working properly - while it could see all the networks, it would always fail when attempting to connect to one. Eventually, the system wasn't even seeing any wireless networks. However, the wired networked worked perfectly.

Other ports and connectors include a rotatable webcam and built-in microphone; a headphone and microphone jack; an SD card reader; two USB 3 ports; a D-sub port; an HDMI port; two USB 2.0 ports; two built-in speakers; and a super-multi optical drive. It's a fairly light-weight system, and Acer removed the power supply from the case and provided a laptop-like brick power supply which helps keep the weight down.