BERLIN—A homebrew PC with training wheels, Acer's Revo Build is made of little modules that magnetically snap together. I played with one for a few minutes after Acer's press conference and it's ingenious.
The Revo Build has a little base chassis that's 4.92 inches square, with an Intel Pentium or Celeron processor, up to 8GB of RAM, 32GB of flash storage, and a bunch of ports on the back: 3 USB 3.0, HDMI, SD, and an audio jack. But the port that's important is on top: a little magnetic connector to attach "blocks," or rectangular black boxes containing other components. Acer showed me a hard drive block (500GB or 1TB) with a USB 3.0 port on the back, a graphics card block (the base unit has pathetic graphics) and a wireless charger block that lets you sit your phone on top of your PC for charging. A "voice block" with a speaker and microphone, and a "projector block" will come as well, Acer says.
Stacking the blocks is extremely easy. They clip magnetically to the base unit or to each other, and after you put on the last block, you can put a little plastic cap with an Acer logo on top (unless you're using the wireless charging block). Acer's test unit wasn't running, so it didn't show what happens if you try to hot-swap blocks, but I wouldn't recommend it.
You can pick up the computer with blocks attached and carry it around. They don't jiggle. I wouldn't turn it upside-down, though; I was able to separate blocks with one hand.
It looks like, initially at least, the blocks have to come from Acer. That means they'll probably be expensive, although Acer wasn't giving away prices. That said, I can't see why you can't crack open a hard drive block to install a different drive, for instance. The blocks can also operate without a PC—thus the USB port on the back of the hard drive.
Acer says the Build is coming to Europe first for around $225, but Acer America said the PC will be coming to the U.S., as well. "U.S. prices and availability will be announced closer to launch," the company said.
Take a look at the slideshow and the Vine below to see how the Build snaps together.