AMD netbooks: Acer Aspire One 521 and Gateway LT22 hands-on

Acer may already have the Ion 2-powered Aspire One 532g in its arsenal, but who's going to complain about two more HD-capable, 10-inch netbooks? Showing some serious love to AMD, the Acer Aspire One 521 and Gateway LT22 both pack new 1.2GHz AMD V105 processors along with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 graphics. The latter is what had us most impressed when we caught some time with the duo at the Netbook Summit -- the 521 and LT22 handled 1080p WMV video and light gaming without any stuttering. We'll hold our real performance conclusions until we can test the battery life on these bad boys, but other than that they look like decent netbook contenders with the standard 1GB of RAM and 160GB hard drives. And unlike the typical Atom netbook, they have HDMI ports.

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Dell Inspiron i580-5108NBC

The Dell Inspiron i580-5108NBC is an ideal match for users with computing habits that lean toward general applications like simple Internet surfing, word processing, and light media editing. Its 3.2GHz Intel Core i5 560 CPU is well equipped to handle applications like iTunes and Photoshop, and it excelled against the competition in a multitasking environment as well. Dell includes a decent 3D graphics card for casual gaming, but keeps the system affordable with an $830 price tag. If you haven't figured it out by now, we recommend this versatile system for shoppers on a flexible budget that want more functionality than what a low-grade budget computer can offer.

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Top 5 Desktop PC

The five systems in this list represent what I consider the current best examples in computing design, and they're more than just the sum of their parts. Whether your aim is to show off your good taste; to upgrade, tweak, and tinker; to frag into the wee hours; or to master and expand your digital-media library (or create some media of your own), you will find something on this list that, if not totally to your liking, will serve as an excellent comparison point as you shop around.
Apple iMac (27-inch, 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, ATI Radeon HD 4670, fall 2009)

Apple's new 27-inch iMac will charm plenty of you with its screen size alone. Fortunately, that won't lead you astray. Behind its expansive display, Apple has packed one of the fastest all-in-ones available, and added a few useful extras to sweeten the deal. This iMac isn't perfect, but its positives far outweigh its negatives. We can think of few users to whom we wouldn't recommend this system.

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