We’re wholly in favor of PC makers attempting to break away from the glossy, rectangular, black-plastic box that has epitomized mainstream desktop-PC design for the past several years. But as you can see in the profile image below, the arcing front face of the Aspire M3470’s tower looks a bit, well, unusual.
About a third of the way up the front of the PC, the black-plastic face of the case begins sloping outward, so the optical drive bays and the flash-card-reader slots mounted in the upper drive bays stick out an inch or more beyond the bottom of the case. It’s not an inelegant design, and it doesn’t interfere with the PC’s functionality, but we’re pretty sure it’s a look that won’t appeal to everyone.
On the top of the tower, as you can see below, we noted a few features that we'd consider more universally appealing. Inside the large, recessed tray sit four USB 2.0 ports, as well as mic and headphone jacks. We like the tray for storing gadgets while they sync and charge via the USB ports. (If most users are anything like us, we're pretty sure the tray will also end up being a collection point for a motley bunch of USB flash drives, spare change, paperclips, and other desk detritus.)
When we took our review system out of the box, however, the top USB ports weren’t lined up perfectly with the holes made for them in the case. This made it difficult to plug in our USB key full of test files the first time we tried. Once we got the drive plugged in, a little wiggling seemed to force the ports to line up correctly, but this left us with a feeling that the fit-and-finish of the Aspire M3470 leaves something to be desired.
The same can be said for the bundled monitor. While its 1,920x1,080 resolution is luxuriously roomy for a budget PC, its connectivity is minimal. You get just VGA and DVI inputs, plus a single audio-in jack. The stand offers only a bit of tilt adjustment (that is, forward and back), and it feels a bit wobbly.
Plus, the screen, as you would expect, isn’t a top-end one. Colors looked a bit washed out compared with pricier models we've tested, especially when you're not looking at it straight-on. Still, the screen is bright and roomy, and it will impress most folks upgrading from an old CRT monitor or an early-era LCD that has a lower resolution. In short, don’t expect stunning, top-notch visuals from this LCD, but this is nonetheless a whole lot of screen for the price.
The bundled peripherals are, as expected, nothing to get excited about. As you can see in the image below, both are glossy black, plain, and of the wired-USB variety. The mouse is notable only in that it doesn’t feel quite as cheap in your hand as some low-end HP mice that we’ve seen bundled with systems lately.
The keyboard, though, is a bit odd, in that its keys are extremely flat. Also, the key design is of an odd floating-Chiclet style, similar to those found on some laptops. We found the keys a bit disconcerting to type on at first, but we could see ourselves adjusting to them in time. If you don’t make your living typing, this keyboard is probably adequate, and dedicated media-playback control keys along the top of the board are a nice touch for a keyboard in a budget-priced PC. Still, trotting down to your local big-box store and spending $20 or so on a keyboard upgrade from Logitech or Microsoft would be a vast improvement.
Getting back to the Aspire M3470 tower itself, its rear port selection offers another nice surprise for a budget PC, in the form of two high-speed USB 3.0 ports. Four additional USB 2.0 ports also reside on the back panel, along with an Ethernet jack, a trio of analog audio connectors, VGA and HDMI ports for connecting to a monitor or HDTV, and a pair of PS/2 ports for old-school peripherals. An antenna for the included Wi-Fi card sticks out under the port panel from one of the expansion-card slots.
Ports and design are important, but the internals are what dictate what you can actually do with a PC. And on that front, the Aspire M3470 is an interesting mix of components. The 6GB of RAM and roomy 1TB hard drive are both generous for a budget PC. And the DVD±RW drive won’t play back Blu-ray discs, that's fine; we wouldn’t expect a Blu-ray drive in a system at this price.
The most interesting component of the Aspire AM3470, though, is its AMD A8-3800 processor. Running at 2.4GHz, it’s a stepped-down version of the AMD A8-3850 processor we reviewed at the end of June 2011. Like that processor, the A8-3800 is a four-core CPU that isn’t quite as fast as competing Intel Core i3 processors in most everyday computing tasks. But the A8 line makes up for that with the best integrated on-chip graphics we’ve seen yet on a mainstream processor. We wouldn’t exactly call the Aspire M3470 a gaming PC, but if you’re looking for a low-cost family machine that can handle many of today’s games at a basic level (at lower resolutions, and with some of the in-game settings dialed back), the Aspire M3470 makes a pretty good case for itself, as you'll see in our testing.
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