Ian Grayson09 October 2007, 3:09 AM
Hate backing a losing horse? The latest desktop offering from Acer allows you to have an each-way bet on the Blu-ray / HD-DVD race.
 AcerAspire M5630: cuts through high definition format wars with ease |
The ongoing high-definition DVD battle may be showing little sign of abating, but the new Acer Aspire M5630 desktop means you don't have to care.
This multimedia unit comes equipped with a GGC-H20N drive from Hitachi-LG Data Storage that happily plays disks of both varieties. It can also read and burn regular DVDs and CDs.
The box is the first on the market to incorporate the dual-format DVD drive, and Acer appears to have wrapped up an exclusive supply deal with the manufacturer -- we were unable to track down an alternative Australian distributor for this drive.
Powered by an Intel Q6600 Core 2 Quad processor, the M5630 plays HD content stored in either format at a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080.
Loaded with Vista Home Premium, 2GB of DDR2 memory, a 500GB hard drive, and a 22-inch monitor, the M5630 has a list price of $2299.
The company is also offering a version equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 chip that incorporates the combo Blu-ray / HD-DVD drive.
It's hard to say who is going to win the next-gen battle, but both camps are spending up big to win the hearts and minds of consumers around the world.
Forrester principal analyst JP Gownder says his company predicted back in 2005 that Blu-ray would win the next-generation DVD format war. However he concedes the contest still has at least another 18 months to run.
"Blu-ray's content advantages are somewhat diminished since the recent decision by Paramount to commit exclusively to HD-DVD," he says in a recent research report.
"The Blu-ray camp must also stave off further studio defections, and employ more aggressive promotional tactics to counter HD-DVD's recent momentum."