Acer Aspire TC-895-UA91 Desktop, 10th Gen Intel Core i3-10100 4-Core Processor, 8GB 2666MHz DDR4, 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD, 8X DVD, 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6, USB…

I bought this Acer tower to use as a home office desktop and it seems to be doing a good job. The i3 10th generation quad core processor is reasonably capable and, according to cpubenchmark.net, has a pass mark score of 8918, which puts it well above the average CPU. The 8 GB RAM is not enough, though, and I ordered another 8 GB module to upgrade the RAM to 16 GB. The exact RAM module that this Acer came with is this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XLXWD5S/.
You can upgrade the RAM to 32 GB, but to do so, you will need to order two 16 GB modules. There are two RAM slots that can each take up to 16 GB.

This desktop came with Windows 10 Home (version 1909), which I upgraded to 20H2. It also included a 30-day trial of Norton Security, which I replaced with Bitdefender. Make sure that you use Norton’s removal tool if you wish to uninstall the program because otherwise it could mess things (has done it before and so have other AV products – the most notorious, in my opinion, being McAfee).

Other impressions: the PC is really quiet unless installing Windows updates, at which point every now and then the fan makes a high-pitched noise. It is quick and responsive and does average office tasks + video streaming, etc. quite well. The Wi-fi 6 is good and doesn’t drop the signal. One unusual thing (I believe someone else mentioned this too) is that Windows initially did many driver updates, mostly related to the Realtek audio system. The Samsung SSD makes a difference and multitasking is quick. I am not a gamer, although I sometimes play games from Steam. Given the Intel HD 630 graphics onboard, which are midrange at best, you won’t be able to play any demanding games.

Overall – at this price point, this desktop offers really good value. The two cons are the need to upgrade the RAM – the 8 GB module on board works fine out of the box but during installations, etc. at times the RAM usage exceeds 80%. The other con is the keyboard – not too comfortable and very basic, lacking backlit keys, etc. The wired mouse, on the other hand, is quite comfortable to use.

I’ve only had the computer for 3 days so this is about setting it up, not how it works.

It arrived in a factory-sealed box so it obviously hadn’t been opened. Its contents included the TC-895, keyboard, and mouse, as advertised. There was also a 6-inch cable labeled Serial ATA, the usual very-small-print warranty, FCC and EU Declaration of Conformity that included info on power management and a page with what appears to be drawings of what needs to be plugged in, and flyer titled, “Got a Question About Your New Acer Device? Ask Us!”

Usually these days a new electronic device of any complexity has a poster-size or foldout series of illustrations and instructions on initial setup, and in the case of a PC a well as a photo or drawing showing labeling the types of ports or plugins on the front and back. If you want anything more you go to the website and download a PDF users manual. So I thought I’d see if maybe it was missing and there was one online.

I was easily able to find the proper Acer support page. There I found the Users Manual but no Setup Guide. The users manual said nothing about initial setup. BUT, it referenced the Startup Guide/Poster that doesn’t exist either in the box or under my computer model’s online documentation list. The hour was late but I decided to chat with Amazon tech support. Abdul was helpful in that he told be what the ATA cable was for (in case I wanted to add a component) but could find nothing about set up. He did offer to set up a return, however, if I wanted to send it back. I declined.

Next I called Acer support. I was quickly connected with a representative who had no more luck than Abdul at Amazon. Trying to be ever so helpful he offered to walk me through the setup process. By then it was almost 10 pm and I’m not a night owl so thanked him and said I’d call back.

The next day I decided to just plug it all in and see how I did. It went well. By Day 2 I was able to identify the front and back ports (some of which had microscopically small symbols beside them). I was unaware until now that there are 3 types of USB connections.

The bottom line is that Acer should have some simple documentation packed with its computers. It would save a lot of time and frustration for those of us who aren’t tech wizards.

Now I just hope the thing continues to work.

the motherboard/PSU combo is the new ATX12VO. There is ZERO Third party option to upgrade power supply. therefore the most you can add in gpu will most likely be a 75w pcie16x powered graphics card. gaming on this is very limited until the power supply becomes available. as of now i have not heard back from acer via email if they have a bigger power supply they will sell. none available on website or anywhere on the internet. i will update rating then for anyone who would like to know. now if you strictly want this for surfing web and youtube small load things like that. its a great computer. starts from off in like 20 seconds. fast processing aslong as its not a heavy load like gaming. i would give a higher then 2 rating if they made it perfectly clear how un upgradable it is.

Documentation for this is wildly insufficient. The motherboard appears to be proprietary. There’s isn’t a readily available data sheet (if there is one at all). That means the power capacity of the PCI slot is unknown. Amongst other issues.

The power supply /might/ be a TFX psu. It cannot be easily replaced with an better one. It doesn’t follow standard color coding for the power wires. You can see white wires in the pictures I added. They metered out at 12v, not the -5v that would be expected. That makes it easier to engineer a DIY solution, as long as you’re aware of it.
It also might confuse a retail vendors if you’re looking for an upgrade.

In anycase, non-standard build and lack of detailed documentation (I did find the manual, it’s not detained) is being applied to the tech support rating.

It isn’t a great gaming PC as delivered. The difficulty with upgrading the power supply, (which is needed to add a video card) makes it poor.

Wife complained it didn’t have sufficient graphics support for advanced zoom meeting effects.

Consider it a web browsing, word processor.

The computer itself seems fine but I am very annoyed with the description of the audio features. In reading the description and looking at the photo it appeared to me to have “Hi Def Audio” (i,e. internal speakers producing this audio) as one of the features. Rather, it only has the ability to support this type of audio. I had a couple other people read the description and review the photo as well and they concluded the same thing from the description. Not impressed with Acer because of this.

This piece of crap uses a completely non conforming power supply. All kinds of reviews of how you can add larger video cards, but with this model they have changed the power supply configuration to some little 300W power supply that does not conform to any power supply I have ever seen. New motherboard connections, new size factor – absolutely no way to port over the real power supply I had intended to use. Amazon needs to quit lumping reviews and comments for several different models together as it is very misleading. You want to run excel? Maybe its an ok computer.