Heat from me. Looks like the CPU is comparable to an i3 3310 so while it's not super fast, it's no slouch for daily chores.

For a reasonable spec desktop with a 21" monitor this seems a pretty decent deal, you can still upgrade to Win10 for free using the assistive technologies option from Microsoft (very easy, no hassle or problems doing this)

i had the slight baby brother of this Acer (A4-5000) and while the CPU and ram were fine for basic tasks the HDD was unbelievely slow, i mean it would sit at 100% most of the time so it would just bring the whole system to a stand still.

The Core i3 you mentioned seems to be some 50-70% quicker, depending on the benchmark or program, but this cpu is a fine base for day to day machine.

A desktop CPU that is slower than a 4.5 year old i3 laptop CPU is okay due to how cheap it is.

sold out

That would be true if I wasn't referring to Windows 8.1 (not upgraded, just clean format). After replacing the drive with a SSD, it made it so much more bearable. I have since upgraded to Windows 10, had issues (as with all my upgrades) so did a clean install of Windows 10 and it performed well.

I have since sold it to a friend where I switched the SSD for a performance HDD (as he needed the capacity) with a clean Windows 10 on it, performing much better than out of the box.

Well I might have to follow your steps, as mine is now at 100% & unusable. Followed all steps google threw up & still no joy.

I might try a windows 7 downgrade & work my way back up.

Well I would start with a clean format of Windows 10 (using your 8.1 key) and see how it goes but the drive is just cheap and slow (can't complain for the price). My next suggestion would be to look at performance or HDD's or if your budget allows, get an SSD.

It's 220 not 189 missed out