Thursday, August 30, 2007

Acer Ferrari 5005WLMi

A sports car is a blast, but on a long drive its tight confines and sacrifices in creature comforts make a sporty luxury car more alluring. The same line of thinking is behind the $2,399 Acer Ferrari 5005WLMi (a Windows Vista Ultimate version is available for $2,699). It delivers the sharp looks of the ultraportable Acer Ferrari 1000 but in a scaled-up package that's more comfortable to use in the home, office, or dorm.

With its glossy carbon-fiber-patterned lid, red accents, and yellow prancing-horse logo, the 5005WLMi stands out from the field of gray and silver notebooks, without being as outlandish as the Alienware Aurora or Asus Lamborghini models. At 6.6 pounds and an inch thick at its leading edge, the unit is manageable to carry.

Pop the lid and you'll find a sharp black-on-black color scheme. The full-sized keyboard is laid out in Acer's unique "smile" configuration, which makes for a more natural wrist position for touch typists (the shape is subtle enough not to be offensive to traditionalists). The expansive keyboard deck is covered in a rubberized material that feels good under your palms, and the touchpad features a four-way scroll rocker switch between the two mouse buttons, though in this price range we would have preferred to see a fingerprint reader there. Given the room around the keyboard, dedicated multimedia control buttons would also have been nice.

The 15.4-inch glossy widescreen is sharp and clear. Onscreen images looked great, but the panel's relatively high resolution (1680 x 1050 pixels) made for small default fonts in apps and on Web pages. DVD playback showed accurate colors but with some motion blur in moving images. As with other 15.4-inch panels, viewing angles were good side to side; just watch for glare.

Sound quality from the front-firing stereo speakers was good, with little distortion even at maximum volume. That said, with a chassis this size, we expected speakers with more power and a bit of bass punch. But with a multiformat dual-layer DVD burner-a slot-loading model-as well as a complete range of ports, the 5005WLMi is a good multimedia machine overall. You'll find an S-Video out port, HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) support, and an S/PDIF-capable headphone jack in addition to a 5-in-1 memory card reader.

Extra touches abound. Acer includes Bluetooth wireless, a comfortable Bluetooth travel mouse, and a VoIP phone that slips into the PC Card slot. The company's "Empowering Technology" e-tools (accessible via a quick-launch button) include utilities for speedily accessing security, wireless, and performance settings, as well as system-recovery tools and more. A swiveling 1.3-megapixel webcam above the screen is useful for videoconferencing, though we noticed a tendency for images to blur even with small amounts of movement.
If the 5005WLMi disappoints at all, it's in overall performance. It's powerful enough for typical business and even light gaming duties. It's just that with a name like Ferrari, we expected this system to be in the front of the pack. Instead, the 5005WLMi's 2-GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 CPU, married to 2GB of RAM, delivered an okay score of 219 on MobileMark 2005. That's merely average and well behind performance leaders that reside in the mid to high 200s.
Gaming and 3D performance from the 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 GPU were good, with a score of 7,515 on 3DMark03 and a playable 42 fps on F.E.A.R. (at 1024 x 768-pixel resolution). At 3 hours and 26 minutes, battery life was typical for a machine in this class. Wireless throughput from the unit's integrated 802.11b/g radio was low, however: 7.9 Mbps at 15 feet from the access point, and just 6 Mbps at 50 feet.
In addition to the Acer utilities, you get CD/DVD creation software (from NTI) and Norton AntiVirus protection. Acer's one-year parts-and-labor warranty is nothing special, but unlike others, the company includes lifetime toll-free tech support. There's even overseas support for globe-trotting jet-setters.

There's a lot to like about the 5005WLMi. It's not the fastest notebook on the track, but you'll be pleased with its looks and features.

QUICK SPECS

Acer Ferrari 5005 WLMi
www.acer.com/us

CPU 2-GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60
Operating System Windows XP Professional
RAM/Expandable to 2GB/2GB
Hard Drive/Speed 160GB/5,400 rpm
Optical Drive 6X DVD+/-RW DL
Display/Resolution 15.4 inches/1680 x 1050
Graphics/Video Memory ATI Mobility Radeon X1600/256MB
Wireless Networking 802.11b/g, Bluetooth
Ports Four USB 2.0, FireWire, HDMI, S-Video, VGA, Ethernet, modem, IR, headphone (with S/PDIF support), mic
Card Slots One Type II, 5-in-1 memory card reader
Weight 6.6 pounds
Size 14.3 x 10.7 x 1 inches
Warranty/Support One-year parts and labor/lifetime 24/7 toll-free
MobileMark 2005 219
3DMark03 7,515
Battery Life (Wi-Fi On/Off) 3:26 / 3:26
Wireless Performance (15/50 feet) 7.9 Mbps / 6.0 Mbps

Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi

by Aaron Shepard, Virginia USA

Overview/Specifications:

Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi (view larger image)

Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi Specs:

  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional
  • AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology ML-37(1MB L2 cache, 2.0GHz)

  • Radeon Xpress 200M Chipset
  • 1GB (512MB installed in each of two memory slots) DDR333 SDRAM (upgradeable to 2 GB total)
  • 100GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive (5400 rpm)
  • Integrated DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive
  • 5-in-1 card reader for optional MultiMediaCard , Secure Digital card, Memory Stick , Memory Stick PRO or xD-Picture Card
  • 15.4" WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) TFT LCD, up to 16.7 million colors
  • ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700 graphics, 128MB DDR memory
  • Dimensions & Weight: 14.3" (363.0mm) W x 10.5" (265.7mm) D x 1.2" - 1.4" (30.5mm - 34.3mm) H. 6.3 lb. (2.9kg)

Reasons for buying:

Well, asides from the obvious? To give some background quickly, the Acer Ferrari 4000 series consists of the Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi and the 4002WLMi. The 4002 is not widely available yet, but it will be slightly cheaper, less powerful, and have a glossy screen. I don't like the glossy screens in general though, and the power drop to the 4002 is significant. Before hearing about the Ferrari, I was debating between the Dell Inspiron 6000, and the HP dv4000. I loved the dv4000's media controls, but it had integrated graphics and low maximum ram (1 gb). The Dell was a great value, but the look left something to be desired in my opinion. Still, it was going to be my choice until I heard about the Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi. I had seen the previous Ferrari itterations (3000, 3200, 3400), and I loved the look; however they were a tad too flashy for me. I wanted something that could look respectable in a formal setting, but also would look and feel very nice in an informal one. I really dont think there is any question this is the best looking laptop ever made, with a possible exception of those Chameleon paint job Alienware's a while back. Everyone will comment on how nice it looks, which can be a good or a bad thing. Still, its not as theft-prone as the Ferrari 3000 series, as it doesnt immediately stand out as much. However up close it looks much better in my opinion. Getting off of the physical aspects, I also wanted a laptop that could play games somewhat well, and would last a while. The x700 graphics card is somewhat overkill for me, but you will be able to play any game you want on the highest settings for a while. The 64 bit processor will also ensure that this will work with Longhorn when that comes out. I wanted a 15.4" screen; weight wasnt a huge issue, but i didnt want something that was really bulky. Well as you can see in the specifications, this baby weighs a mere 6.3 lbs, and is both thin and light. About the Ferrari name, basically they license Acer to make a computer with their logo on it. Yah, you might pay a bit extra for it, but the computer is worth it without the logos and the look. With them, honestly it's a good value.

Purchase details:

Purchased from ZipZoomFly, I got a great deal at $2,079. Price has since gone up to $2,149, but that does include free ground shipping. Took about a week, but was very easy and convenient, and it arrived in perfect condition.

Out of the box:

Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi box (view larger image)

Yah, even the box is beautiful. Comes with a ton of stuff too; mouse, a very good set of guides and easy manuals. Quick reference sheet, phone cable, LCD screen cloth, warranty information, and a several software disks for both drivers and a windows XP Pro disk.

Build & Design:

I had never heard of Acer until I saw the Ferrari; however they have a great reputation as a computer maker, and that prooved true to form with this computer. I dont want to go back into the design too much, but this looks sensational. The lid is made of a carbon fiber covered in a plastic resin, and it is very sturdy in addition to looking great. The screen and laptop as a whole are a bit bendy, but the screen doesnt ripple at all if pressure is applied to the lid. This is great since if you by accidentally drop something on the top, the screen is well protected. There is no wobble on the hinges, it feels very sturdy, and gives a decisive click when you close it. Again, it bends a VERY small amount, but nothing more than any other laptop I'd expect. It is a very wide screen, so that could be part of it. All the ports and slots are well placed, as there are USB ports on both sides of the computer. Headphone jack on front is nice. Design as a whole is very nice. It does get hot if you leave it on for a while, specifically the mouse pad and lft side under computer. However the rubber finish surrounding the keyboard insolates fairly well. Fans are positioned well on sides so as to not heat user. Kensington lock slot is always nice.

Acer Ferrari 4005 right side (view larger image)

Acer Ferrari 4005 left side (view larger image)

Acer Ferrari 4005 back side (view larger image)

Acer Ferrari keyboard area (view larger image)

Free mouse included! (view larger image)

...and a free cloth (view larger image)

Screen:

Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi Screen (view larger image)

No dead pixels! Resolution is 1680x1050, which looks spectacular for games and movies. No leaks or any other issues, just a great screen. Some things people might not like though is that it is a very wide screen, which is great for excel stuff but not so good for web browsing. Turning up the text size on pages makes this a fairly small problem though, as does installing Microsoft Cleartype. Also, movies will have black borders around every side, as the screen is too big I think. I personally like the matte finish better than the reflective ones, as I will use this outside quite a bit. Finally, some icons might be a little blurry, as they are not made for the high resolution. Brightness can be turned down by simple function task.

Speakers/Sound:

Integrated microphone and two speakers. Microphone/line-in and stereo headphones/speakers/line-out with SPDIF support ports. Works great, as you will see when you first turn on the computer: a roaring ferrari sound greets you once you first log on (not sure what program they use for this but its very cool). Headphone volume is very weak though, and I would recommend getting the Turtle Beach USB Audio Advantage Micro. Sound is crisp though, works very well for movies as the surround sound gives a very cool feel. Speakers are set on front of computer as well, so it is very clear.

Processor and Performance:

Honestly, I have no complaints about speed on this laptop, as would be expected. From pressing the power button, it takes 20 seconds to get to the Windows log in screen, and after putting in password, a little under 5 seconds to hear the Ferrari roaring by, signaling your computer is ready to go. Hard drive is very snappy, and I havent encounted any speed issues. Might upgrade to 2 gb ram eventually, but for now everything I run is pretty instantaneous. Very nice to work with a computer with no lag. I know this isnt a lot about performance, but I really cant see how this would fall short of anyone's expectations in this department. It would give a serious challenge to even the best of the big 17" desktop replacement laptops, and blows away any of the 15" ones. Decided not to undervolt, overclock, or partition it; dont want to risk anything happening, and it runs perfectly anyways.

The processor matches the performance of the logo (view larger image)

DVD Super Multi Drive:

First the stats.

  • Read -- 24X CD-RW, 24X CD-ROM, 24X CD-R, 8X DVD+R, 8X DVD-R, 8X DVD-ROM, 4X DVD+RW, 4X DVD-RW, 3X DVD-RAM, 2.4X DVD+R (double-layer)
  • Write -- 24X CD-R, 8X DVD+R, 8X DVD-R, 4X DVD+RW, 4X DVD-RW, 4X CD-RW, 2.4X DVD+R (double-layer), 2X DVD-RAM

Slot drive is a cool feature, if for nothing other than its novelty. Can't play mini-cds which sucks a little, but if it ever became a huge deal I could replace this or get a USB one. Burns very quickly.

Benchmarks:

The popular Super Pi benchmark for this site gives a rough approximation how the Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi stands up to other notebooks:

Notebook Time to Calculate Pi to 2 Million Digits
Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi (AMD Turion 64 ML-37, 2.0GHz) 1m 50s
Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86 GHz Alviso Pentium M) 1m 53s
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86 GHz Alviso Pentium M)


1m 45s
Fujitsu LifeBook N3510 (1.73 GHz Alviso Pentium M) 1m 48s
Dell Inspiron 6000D (1.6 GHz Alviso Pentium M) 1m 52s
Dell Inspiron 600M (1.6 GHz Dothan Pentium M) 2m 10s
Sony VAIO S360 (1.7 GHz Dothan Pentium M) 1m 57s
Gateway 7510GX (AMD Mobile Athlon 64 3700+ Processor, 2.4 GHz) 1m 31s
Sony VAIO S380 (1.86 GHz Alviso Pentium M) 1m 42s

3D Mark 2005 Score: 2356

Note: The games loaded VERY quickly, and watching some of them was like watching a movie.

Input devices:

88-key Acer FineTouch keyboard with five-degree curve, inverted T cursor layout, 2.5mm minimum key travel, international language support. Web browser, e-mail, user-programmable easy-launch buttons; Empowering Key; front-access wireless LED and Bluetooth buttons. Touchpad with four-way integrated scroll button. Gloss-black optical mouse. Keyboard is very well built, although the curved layout takes a bit to get used to. Not sure if I like it more than a regular one, but it isnt horrible. Touchpad is very nice, although it gets hot, but its large to accomidate widescreen. The function buttons are good, and volume/brightness are especially easy to change. Screen doesnt flex at all. Programable buttons at top are nice; you can change all of them to do whatever you want very easilly through launch manager; however initially they are set for Outlook (email button), Internet Explorer (world button), Acer Emanager (e button), and Launch Manager (P button). The latter lets you change the buttons, but I like to use it for Microsoft Word. Very nice feature. Bluetooth and Lan buttons are nice, but not sure why they are on front. Still they glow nicely when on. Definately could use some media controls, thats a fairly large negative imo, as only thing you can control is the volume. The mouse has gotten some flack for being fluky, but I had no issues with it. It is very easy to connect, and recharges via USB (although you can still use it when its plugged in). Looks nice, and has a good feel. Not a great mouse per say, but it looks good and is functional. On a quirky sidenote, has a Euro key and Dollar key right next to the arrows. Not sure this is really necessary, but not a negative.The touchpad comes with a very cool software, Synaptics touchpad 5.9. Basically it lets you customize the touchpad completely, including sensitivity, layout, and a really cool button feature. Basically, you can set the four corners of the touchpad to do different functions when tapped. For example, I have the upper left set as "Back", the upper right as "Forward", the bottom left as "Goto start menu" and the bottom right as "Refresh". The buttons give a good click, and the four way scroll is a very cool feature. If you want the four buttons here are also reprogramable, a general theme of this notebook.

Input and Output Ports:

VGA, DVI-D (digital visual interface-digital) and S-video TV-out ports. Support for simultaneous display on notebook LCD and external monitor. Intel AC97 compliant, Interface Ports, DC-in, RJ-11 modem, RJ-45 LAN, VGA, DVI-D (digital visual interface-digital), S-video TV-out, Microphone/line-in, Stereo headphones/speakers/line-out with SPDIF support, FireWire (IEEE 1394), FIR (fast infrared), Four USB 2.0, Connector for optional ezDock docking station. Type II PC Card slot, 32-bit PC CardBus architecture, Zoomed Video support. Easilly accessible USB and ethernet ones. 5-in-1 is in front and easy to use.

Wireless:

Acer InviLink 802.11b/g wireless LAN, Acer SignalUp technology for enhanced antenna efficiency, WI-FI CERTIFIED . Bluetooth wireless PAN. Acer SignalUp is great, and bluetooth is very good. Controls are accessible as previously mentioned, but a little annoying as you can accidentally turn them off depending on how you type. No complaints.

Battery/AC Adapter:

90-watt AC adapter, which is actually not too big. Eight-cell lithium ion battery; up to 3.0 hours life depending on configuration and usage; 2.5 hours recharge time with system off, 3.5 hours with system in use. Very easy to put in, as it just fits in the back. Doesn't stick out, but if you dont have it in there is a gaping hole that you can see

Operating System and Software:

Installed software: Acer eManager, Acer GridVista Acer Launch Manager, Adobe Acrobat Reader, CyberLink PowerDVD *, Norton AntiVirus *, NTI CD-Maker *, on CD shipped with system: Acer System Recovery. All very easy to use, and convenient. I reinstalled drivers upon getting it, figured why not. Software is very nice though, especially the Launch manager. Nothing amazing, but a nice touch. Comes with XP Pro, with SP2 already installed. User and administrator BIOS passwords are easilly set up through EManager.

Customer Support/Warranty:

Haven't talked to anyone at Acer, because honestly I dont really need to. It was simple to set up, and registration consisted of me looking at the bottom of my computer and typing in numbers. After that, the warranty was set; however I bought a 3 year total protection plan for $280, as it seems worth it for a computer this beautiful.

Pros (will try to limit to 5, although I think its fairly obvious I could go on for a while!):

  • Ferrari (it's so pretty.....)
  • Performance (works perfectly and is insanely fast)
  • Easilly customizable
  • 64 bit procesor (ensures future viability)
  • Included extras are a very nice touch

Cons (seriously, this is all of them, not including that EVERYONE will notice your laptop):

  • Bluetooth/wireless controls on front (vs being near keyboard)
  • Lack of media controls
  • Keyboard/mousepad heat
  • Headphone volume
  • Screen/carbon fiber top tend to smudge, although the cleaning cloth gets rid of those quickly

Conclusion:

Great laptop, which will last you a while. Definately get the USB sound drive and the total protection warranty extension. At around $2,200 from most retailers, it is a tad pricey; however it really is worth it if you want a great performing laptop. The sensational design is the icing on the cake.

Acer Ferrari 4005 WLMi Review

Acer Ferrari 4005 WLMi

Here is an interesting question for you: How does product placement and sports sponsorship effect you? Personally, I like it. When I see a character in a movie or television show using a product I own, it validates my purchasing decision. Like in Mission Impossible when Ethan Hunt is seen using an Apple PowerBook I remember thinking how cool that was and wondering if the cool-looking Operating System he was using was Apple's Copland (the doomed next-gen Mac OS that preceded OS X). Now, whenever a character on TV uses a computer, I have to identify what brand they are using.

Similarly, in sports I like to see the tech that I am using employed by the teams I cheer for. When I am in the market for something, if a supplier of that item sponsors a team in one of my favorite sports it makes a difference to me. I used to buy Motorola phones when they sponsored Lance Armstrong's cycling team. When Motorola dropped out and USPS stepped in, I switched to using their services to complement my rabid eBay buy/sell addiction. Their sponsorship made it possible for me to continue watching an athlete participate in a sport I enjoyed. Yes, product placement and sponsorship influences me.

Ferrari branding (view larger image)

Sure, there is some push back on the whole branding thing. It's been argued that we are ourselves becoming branded - but hey that is a choice we make, right? And everything else being equal, wouldn't you rather have a branded item than a plain generic one? I would. For manufacturers this is a good way to make a commodity item into something a lot more desirable.

Having this opinion probably makes me the perfect target for an item like the Acer Ferrari 4005 WLMI. There are few brands as recognizable as Ferrari, and there are few things as hard to differentiate as computers.

Ferrari makes products that stand out, so the appeal of using the brand is understandable. In addition to making a great product in the form of performance cars, Ferrari runs a number of successful racing programs. The pinnacle of this being the Ferrari Formula One team.

I dig Formula One (F1), and I have followed it since I was a kid. I even idolized Gilles Villeneuve when I was a kid. Villeneuve was the Ferrari F1 driver whose passion and exuberance came to symbolized the team for many people in the late seventies and early eighties. Tragically, his racing career (and life) were cut short in a racing accident. There is no shortage of racing legends associated with this brand.

The Ferrari F1 racing team has a number of high-tech sponsors. AMD led the charge into F1, and they were shortly followed by Acer as an official supplier to the Ferrari team. It isn't any surprise that Acer would make an AMD Turion-based, Ferrari-branded notebook. Why not make an Intel Centrino-based Ferrari? Intel sponsors Toyota F1.

First Impressions

Acer packages the Ferrari in a box worthy of the name. It's black, glossy and has sexy shots of the 4005. Personally, I think the packaging should be part of the product design -- the entire experience should be consistent -- especially when a premium brand is involved. Acer might as well get the maximum mileage from this association.

Ferrari Box (view larger image)

When you open the box, there are unpacking instructions and a helpful getting started guide inside the flap. This is a nice touch for people who are not as comfortable with technology.

Box - unpacking

Inside you will find the usual array of manuals and disks -- but with an "Ferrari: Official Licensed Product' sticker on most of them. You will also get a Ferrari Bluetooth mouse and cleaning cloth.

I have to confess to being rather giddy when I first handled this Ferrari. It looks like no ordinary notebook. Materials used in the manufacture of the Ferrari are first-rate. From the flex-eliminating Carbon fiber lid (with visible weave), to the pleasant feeling rubberized trim finish, the impression is of a top notch product. The rubber finish is similar to that used on the Compaq 2811CA notebook I had a few years back. Red trim highlights what is a much more conservatively styled notebook than the previous Acer Ferrari's.

Acer Ferrari 4005 lid (view larger image)

Acer Ferrari left side view (view larger image)

Acer Ferrari right side view (view larger image)

Underside of Acer Ferrari 4005

Like all recent Acers, there are lots of buttons and lights on the Ferrari. WiFi and Bluetooth buttons/lights are located on the front as are power and battery indicators. Above the keyboard are four programmable convenience buttons.

Acer Ferrari front side view (view larger image)

Weight is 6.3 pounds - a little on the heavy side for a 15" wide screen notebook, but the benefit is that the Ferrari is quite stiff and feels well-built. Acer quotes a thickness of 1.4 inches, but it looks thinner. This is probably because of the little feet that protrude about a quarter inch from that bottom of the notebook. Underneath, the Ferrari is clean -- no ugly bulges or fan vents.

A distinguishing feature of Acer notebooks is their curved ergonomic keyboard. Despite some initial concern, I found it easy to get adapted. The foundation of the keyboard is very stiff, very similar to my ThinkPad T40. Key travel is medium, and the keys themselves are light weight. While on the topic of input, another neat feature is Acer's wide-screen touch pad. When you think of it, designing the touch pad in the same shape as the screen makes sense.

Acer Ferrari 4005 keyboard and touchpad, notice the curve to the keyboard (view larger image)

Specifications

So thorough is Intel's domination of the mobile computing market that I can honestly say this is my first review of a non-Intel Windows based notebook! Finally, something new to talk about. When looking at Centrino-based notebooks there isn't much variation -- and that is exactly the point. Intel adopted a completely integrated approach to the mobile platform and it paid off. AMD's answer to this is Turion which in my opinion is not remotely as fully-integrated a solution as Centrino.

AMD will tell you that this assemblage of diverse parts from an assortment of vendors is a benefit as it allows PC makers to use best-of-breed components. The irony of this statement is that many of the best-of-breed components are made by Intel.

How do the Turion specs compare to the latest Centrino? On paper, AMD's answer to Intel's mobility juggernaut seems to fall short.

Starting at the top, Acer's Ferrari uses the AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology ML-37 (1MB L2 cache, 2.0 GHz) CPU. This CPU fully supports x86-64 (it is a 64-bit CPU) and this means it will be compatible with current and future 64-bit operating systems from Microsoft, but will run todays programs with no problem.

ATI's RADEON Xpress 200 chipset (ATI RX480M Northbridge and ATI SB400 Southbridge) is used. It features a HyperTransport bus operating at 800 MHz, single channel DDR RAM, SATA support and PCI-Express among other things. Turion solutions can use chipsets from a variety of sources including SiS and VIA.

This is very different from what we are used to seeing in the latest Centrinos, and frankly a little lower tech. I think ATI knows that because it was almost impossible to get any reasonable amount of information on the discreet graphics version of this chipset.

Looking more closely at the CPU it has some noticeable differences from what we would see in an Intel Dothan Pentium-M. AMD's chip has half the amount of level 2 cache (1 MB versus the Pentium-M's 2 MB), but it compensates by including 64-bit support as well as SSE3 (relevant in multimedia applications for speeding up calculations) and a much faster bus speed. AMD offers a power saving system (AMD PowerNow!) similar to Intel's Speed step. There are a number of free utilities you can download from AMD to monitor heat and power usage if you get turned-on by that sort of thing. This particular part consumes 35 watts, this is puzzling because there is a lower watt version of the 2 GHz Turion available that would have stretched out battery life a bit. I am not sure why Acer would forsake the more power frugal CPU.

The Turion, like the Pentium-M, is much more efficient than a Pentium 4. For this reason, AMD uses a naming convention that refers to 'equivalent' speed. In this case, we should expect to see performance comparable to a 3.7 GHz Pentium 4. In tests that I have read, the Turions and Pentium-Ms seem to be evenly matched when operating at the same clock speed.

Acer uses Nanya memory - 1024 MB of RAM to be exact (two 512 MB PC2700 SODIMMs). Because this is a Single Channel chipset, you do not need to match memory in the two slots. In case you are thinking that the slower memory on the Ferrari would be a disadvantage, keep in mind that unlike the Centrino's DDR2 this RAM is low latency. The fast bus used in Turion systems and the low latency RAM makes memory performance a wash between the competing platform.

I would expect to find a 7200 RPM HDD in a Ferrari, but instead Acer spec' ed 100 GB 5400 RPM HDD. In researching this notebook I read that some versions of the Ferrari shipped with a Seagate Momentus HDD. Mine came with a Toshiba MK1032GAX. This drive's most notable feature is its 16 MB buffer. ATA is used in place of the newer SATA standard. A better choice would have been the Hitachi Travelstar 5400 RPM HDD in the same capacity. As a few people pointed out after our Gateway 8510GZ review, the Hitachi 5400 RPM drives perform almost as well as their premium 7200 RPM models that are widely regarded as the best mobile drives in the industry.

Bottom line: Drives in the 100 GB capacity are common, Acer should have provided a faster or larger drive. Also disappointing is the lack of a drop protection (drive parking and/or air bag). Given the fact that this feature is available in an iBook, its exclusion is puzzling.

It is increasingly common to see large drives split into partitions. In Ferrari's case the drive is split into three: a small recovery partition, and two 40 GB partitions (C: drive and a storage volume).

Partitions (view larger image)

The optical drive is a DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive made by Matshita (UJ-845S). Acer spec'd a slot loading model (generally preferable to a tray loading type). This is a good quality drive.

You can't build a high performance laptop and then hobble it with weak video capabilities, so Acer selected ATI's RADEON X700 video chip for the Ferrari. This is a native 16x PCI-Express part. I have seen this available in 64, 128 and 256 MB versions with varying grades of video RAM. Acer chose the 128 MB model with 128-bit video RAM. In this configuration the Mobility X700 is very powerful -- the Ferrari beat the benchmark scores of my Intel Pentium 4 desktop (3.2 GHz) with a RADEON 9800.

Clock speeds on the X700 are 350 MHz GPU and 330 MHz RAM. Although I have seen it listed as GDDR (GDDR = Graphics DDR -- essentially really low latency and low power RAM made expressly for video cards), the Ferrari's video memory is standard DDR according to the test utilities that I use. It is possible that the tools simply can not identify or recognize GDDR.

Acer has two trim levels available for the Ferrari 4000 series. The lower-end spec includes an Acer CrystalBrite 15" wide screen (1280*800) and the high-end model uses a screen in the same size but without the CrystalBrite coating (1680*1050). If there was one feature that made selecting my Ferrari difficult it was this one. I am beginning to really like these high contrast coatings for my home computer. I would avoid it if I were planning to use the Ferrari in an office setting. Let there be no doubt though, the high-end Ferrari has a great screen. It has a great refresh rate; while playing games there was no trace of ghosting.

Acer Ferrari 4005 Screen (view larger image)

If you use an external monitor you are spoiled with options. The Ferrari has DVI, VGA and S-Video ports. Knowing that the Xpress 200M typically has integrated video, I wonder if it would be possible to power four displays with the Ferrari. This would be just the ticket for any Ferrari-driving day trader out there.

Acer has a strange little utility called GridVista which is like a multi-monitor concept on a single screen. This answers a question that I don't think anyone was asking.

Acer changed the Ferrari's default system font size to 120 DPI. This might be great for people with bad eyes, who might otherwise have difficulty reading text at the screens native 1680*1050 resolution, but I found that some control panels look funny with this setting so I reverted back to 90 DPI and was much happier.

Broadcom's 802.11G wireless part handles the WiFi chores. This part features Broadcom's 'Afterburner' Enhanced-G technology that claims to increase network performance by 35%. Linksys supports this feature in some of their routers. I was not able to test this feature myself, but it should come in handy if you have a router that supports the feature and you also happen to like transferring files between your notebook and another computer wirelessly. Of greater value to most people will be WPA security that the newer wireless technologies offer.

While on the topic of WiFi, I should mention the Ferrari's antenna. It uses Acer's SignalUp technology based on PIFA (planar inverted-F antenna). Acer claims this is the leading antenna on the market and I can't argue with them. In my tests the Ferrari held onto a signal very well.

Wrapping up the wireless technologies on the Ferrari is Bluetooth. Acer uses the Microsoft Bluetooth stack which I prefer to the Widcomm and Toshiba implementations that I have tested in the past. Pairing the Ferrari with my Treo and the included mouse was no problem.

Sure, it paired up fine but the matching Acer/Ferrari Bluetooth mouse is rubbish. It works very badly and is too jerky - even for basic computing. In fact it is so bad that even though it is free, it detracts from the overall value of this system. Acer should remove it from the package or improve it. The mouse's rechargeable AA batteries are OK, I suppose.

The Ferrari also includes 10/100/1000 LAN, audio in/out (supporting SPDIF), four USB 2.0 ports, an SD/MMC/MemoryStick/xD card reader, Infra Red and Firewire.

All of this is covered by a one year international warranty.

Software

Acer includes a spartan assortment of software. Just the basics here and thankfully there are no AOL offers in the box or pre-installed. Like those islands of sea gull guano in the Pacific, there must be an island made entirely of discarded AOL disks somewhere -- or there will be soon.

You get a 90 trial of Norton Antivirus (NAV). An OEM copy of NAV costs me $10 CDN so on one hand it is not a big deal for me to buy it. On the other hand, this is a $2400 CDN notebook and while Acer found room in the budget for a worse-than-useless Bluetooth mouse, they did not feel it necessary to bundle a full year NAV license.

NTI's latest burning suite is bundled with the Ferrari so that you can have some fun with the DVD burner. In the past, NTI's stuff has not worked well for me. Generally, I prefer the Nero burning suite. I will give NTI credit though, as the new suite that came bundled with the Ferrari was quite good. It worked well and includes a few good features such as DVD fit (shrink your DVDs and burn them onto a single layer disk) and a complete backup tool set.

PowerDVD will play your DVDs. This is a tried and true application that Acer has installed without the cripple ware that can occasionally accompany CyberLink's software.

I am not sure how the recovery process works. When you boot for the first time you will be prompted to create a restore DVD. A complete set of factory disks is included as well.

Performance

Ferrari had a dreadful season in F1 this year. As I write this, Michael Schumacher has spun out of the Chinese Grand Prix - an ignominious end to his worse-ever season. After years of being far ahead of their rivals where-in Ferrari won both the driver and constructors championship (for 5 successive years), they trailed well off the pace most of the 2005 season. So, is the Acer Ferrari notebook more like the 2004 or the 2005 car?

Acer's Ferrari is a competitive product. It certainly does not dominate in the fashion of the 2004 Ferrari F1 car, but it puts in a good fight and challenges for the championship. Let's have a look at the results:

Super PI (a tool created by the University of Tokyo that is freely distributed) is a good tool to test the speed of a CPU. Sure, it is simple but it gives a pretty clear picture of CPU performance. For this test I used the version of Super PI with support for SSE3.

Notebook Time
Acer Ferrari 4005 WLMi (2.0GHz AMD Turion) 1m 47s
Lenovo ThinkPad Z60t (2.0 GHz Pentium M) 1m 44s
Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86 GHz Pentium M) 1m 53s
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86 GHz Pentium M) 1m 45s
Asus Z70A (1.6GHz Pentium M) 1m 53s
Fujitsu LifeBook N3510 (1.73 GHz Pentium M) 1m 48s
Dell Inspiron 6000D (1.6 GHz Pentium M) 1m 52s
Dell Inspiron 600M (1.6 GHz Pentium M) 2m 10s
Sony VAIO S360 (1.7 GHz Pentium M) 1m 57s
HP DV4170us (Pentium M 1.73 GHz) 1m 53s
Sony VAIO S380 (1.86 GHz Pentium M) 1m 45s

Here are the scores from PCMark04 and the ThinkPad T43 results alongside for comparison:

Futuremark PCMark04 Scores
ThinkPad T43 (1.86GHz, ATI X300 64MB graphics) Acer Ferrari 4005 WLMi (2.0GHz AMD Turion)
Multithreaded Test 1 / File Compression 3.33 MB/s -
Multithreaded Test 1 / File Encryption 27.19 MB/s -
Multithreaded Test 2 / File Decompression 23.4 MB/s 23.95 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 2 / Image Processing 10.88 MPixels/s 11.99 MPixels/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / Virus Scanning 1914.17 MB/s 1533.04 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / Grammar Check 2.82 KB/s 3.07 KB/s
File Decryption 54.11 MB/s 60.97 MB/s
Audio Conversion 2496.87 KB/s 2603.36 KB/s
Web Page Rendering 5.27 Pages/s 4.66 Pages/s
DivX Video Compression 51.71 FPS 45.66 FPS
Physics Calculation and 3D 159.19 FPS 167.79 FPS
Graphics Memory - 64 Lines 868.44 FPS 1607.5 FPS
Futuremark 3DMark05 Scores
3DMark Score 727 3DMarks 2738 3D Marks
CPU Score 3414 CPUMarks 3823 CPUMarks
Gaming Tests
GT1 - Return To Proxycon 3.3 FPS 11.9 FPS
GT2 - Firefly Forest 2.2 FPS 8.6 FPS
GT3 - Canyon Flight 3.4 FPS 12.9 FPS
CPU Tests
CPU Test 1 1.18 FPS 2.2 FPS
CPU Test 2 2.9 FPS -

Overall, the scores in synthetic benchmarks were good. I would characterize them as being in-line with results I have obtained from 2 GHz Pentium-M notebooks. It goes without saying that office applications will run great on the Ferrari, but its Turion processors also excels at encoding and compression tasks, so it would make a great mobile video editing workstation. You will see Intel winning battles in office-type applications and AMD winning in media applications. But the real world difference between Intel and AMD's best is small.

With a 128 MB RADEON X700 the Ferrari will handle pretty much any current generation game at medium to high settings at 1024*768 resolution. A good example of this is Half Life 2 which auto-detected high video settings across the board on first run. Far Cry ran perfectly with absolutely stunning visuals. While not as powerful as a desktop replacement notebook, the Ferrari offers a very satisfying experience.

HalfLife 2 Settings (view larger image)

With an ATI chipset it would have seemed strange for Acer to spec the Nvidia GeForce Go 6600. The 6600 and X700 are very evenly matched with the Nvidia part having the edge in OpenGL games and the ATI part winning in DirectX. This is the second X700 that I have reviewed and it continues to impress me. It is a great part for highly mobile devices like this notebook. The power you can pack into a thin and light-ish notebook is amazing.

ATI's HYPERMEMORY, a feature that lets a video card use a hybrid of dedicated and system ram to improve game performance, continues to mystify me. With the latest CATALYST 5.10 drivers there is still no mention of HYPERMEMORY in the control panel. Yet, when I run 3DMark05 the X700 is enumerated as having 256 MB of RAM. Very strange. I am still not sure how the technology works in practice and whether it is enabled in these tests. Feel free to shed some light on this feature in the comments area if you can enlighten me.

Things are looking good so far, but there was some concern with Acer's choice of HDD. The Ferrari's input/output performance was good -- just good. There are better drives in the same price and class as the 100 GB Toshiba used here. And the lack of data protection features common in so many notebook HDDs accentuates the disappointment of its pedestrian performance.

HDTune Hard Drive Benchmarks

Perhaps the biggest question regarding the Turion platform (if you can call a platform) is battery life. My perception going into this review was that Centrino's utilization of power saving technologies on almost every component -- and the fact that those components are designed to be energy efficient first and foremost -- makes it the better choice for people looking for true mobility.

Intel does very good work tuning performance in ways that are easily measured. AMD should learn from this. Although I had a hard time getting a proper and full result from our favorite battery life benchmark, I could sit through enough of the test to see that the Ferrari would eventually get about 90 minutes.

Sadly, Battery Eater Pro simply refused to complete a test on our Ferrari. There is a documented problem with BEP and the RADEON X700. This is puzzling because it worked OK on the Gateway 8510GZ and that also used an X700. Once the problem is fixed I will update this article with test results but I am not sure how much stock I would place on these results.

In my tests, I found battery life to be in line with Centrino notebooks that I have tested. Most mid-sized Pentium-M notebooks achieve 2-3 hours. Using the Ferrari to surf and write I managed two and a half hours consistently. I would say that 2.5 hours from the Ferrari is a fair expectation. If his notebook used the MT37 and a higher capacity battery, it would be a mobile monster.

Conclusion

If you care how your gear looks, you will love the Acer Ferrari. Simply put, I have not seen a more desirable notebook. Pictures do not do the Ferrari justice. It is both understated and bling. The carbon weave lid looks great and is functional too. I could understand people passing on the previous generation Acer Ferrari's based on their outrageous (bright red) looks, but I can't see people having the same issues with this one.

The Ferrari is as well made as any ThinkPad or PowerBook that I have tested. I suspect that this isn't the only Acer notebook that is built this well. Making a notebook like the Ferrari should bring some attention to a company that is now the 4 largest notebook maker in the world (behind Dell, HP and Toshiba).

In the build quality and looks department the Ferrari is a clear winner -- well ahead of its nearest rival. Like Michael Schumacher did so many times in the 2004 F1 season, the Acer Ferrari starts the 'build quality and aesthetics race' in pole position and disappears into the horizon when the start light goes green. Simply put, in drives away from its rivals.

In terms of performance I would have to rate the Ferrari better than most notebooks in its class. It comes in cheaper than the similar performing Acer 8004 WLMi sporting Intel's fastest Centrino combo. It loses ground in office applications, but the Ferrari wins in most media applications and games. People buy machines like these because they want better frame rates in games or in encoding tools, not to make MS Word operate faster. There is a better choice from AMD in terms of energy consumption, that being the lower power version of the 2 GHz Turion. Also, the HDD is not a championship winning part.

I would say that in the 'performance race' Acer's Ferrari wins by having a keen pit strategy. It wins, but by a close margin.

Expandability in this class of notebook is almost unheard of. I don't have the guts to open the Ferrari up and have look inside. It is very thin so it is pretty hard to imagine a socketed CPU or an accessible AXIOM module. This notebook could be a classic in the future. Anything that lets you keep it longer and get some use from it in the future is a plus. If any one has access to the Acer service manuals let me know.

What about the 'bang for the buck' race? Making a value judgment on the Ferrari is a little tougher call. In my opinion, at about $2400 CDN this Ferrari is a lot more desirable than your similarly priced high-end notebook. As mentioned earlier, Acer makes the TravelMate 8104 WLMi which packs a 2 GHz Centrino into the same chassis as the Ferrari, with the same video card, but minus the Ferrari branding. The 8104 sells for about $300 more than the Ferrari -- and it is gray. Performance between the two is very close. Given the choice I would take the Ferrari.

Acer also offers a lower spec'd version of the Ferrari at what I consider to be a good price point ($1900 CDN). You get half the RAM, a 1.6 GHz Turion rather than 2 GHz, an 80 GB HDD (5400 RPM) and the CrystalBrite screen mentioned earlier. The only question becomes can you live with the 1.6 GHz Turion? If it turns out that the Ferrari's CPU is in a socket, this issue will be rendered moot because you will be able to upgrade it yourself.

In the final analysis, if you are looking at a high end notebook, you really should check out the Acer Ferrari. It is an excellent performer with top-notch looks. Acer has put together a premium notebook that is easily differentiated from others based on both the choice of internal components and looks.

Acer's sponsorship of an F1 team has paid off for them. Although their other notebooks are nice, I think it is fair to say that they are not objects of desire for most people. I think that the Ferrari changes that.

Pros:

  • Gorgeous - simply beautiful to look at
  • Superior build quality and materials
  • Great performance that rivals Intel's best
  • Decent bang for the buck (4002WLMI may be the better value)
  • Can play any current generation game with reasonable settings
  • Unique -- you won't see too many of them around
  • Will run Microsoft's Vista OS nicely

Cons:

  • The Ferrari could have used the 25 watt version of the 2 GHz Turion
  • More cells in the battery would help
  • Ditch the crappy mouse -- give us something useful

Pricing and Availability: Acer Ferrari 4005 WLMi

Acer Ferrari 3400 Review

by Tim Mavor

After 6 years of avid computer use, I recently bought my first laptop: the Acer Ferrari 3400. Obviously I went looking for reviews for the Ferrari 3400 but unfortunately I didn't really find any decent reviews that got past talking about the looks of this Acer notebook. So, after buying one I decided to write my own.




Acer Ferrari 3400 Out of the Box (view larger image)

Specs

Dimensions and Weight

The Ferrari sits at 13.0' W x 10.7' D x 1.2' H giving it a weight of 6.6LBS. I would say that's not bad for a gaming laptop considering the newer Alienware or Dell XPS are around 12-13 pounds and look like a hummer took a dump. It fits nicely on my desk beside my desktop, or my lap when I'm in a cramped area, but is also big enough to play games and be able to actually see people. Ultimately it's light enough that it doesn't become annoying carrying it over the course of a day.

CPU: Low power mobile AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1MB L2 1600mhz FSB

I was conflicted with this processor. On the one hand, it's future-proofed as it's 64 bit, and a 2 GHz processor, but on the other hand, I haven't really been that impressed with the battery life. With a low power mobile processor I would think that I'd get more than 3 hours of battery life just sitting idle -- but I don't. Other than that though, it's perfect for playing games, multi-tasking, and just all around computer use.

Memory: 512MB DDR333 (2x256)

This is one of the areas I think Acer skimped out on. I mean, they COULD have used PC3200, or even just added 1 dimm so there was room for expansion. The ram in it is adequate, but I'm likely going to buy a 1gig DDR400 dimm for it sometime in the near future.

GPU: Mobile ATI Radeon 9700Pro 128MB

The 9700 pro 128MB is a great card, there is no disputing that. It runs the latest games with a good framerate, which makes the laptop a fine gaming machine. Running aquamark 3 I scored 26,221 and scored 3105 in 3Dmark03. For playing newer games (e.g. Half life 2), the game is very playable on middle to higher resolution. Unfortunately though, there are few drivers out there adaptable to mobile graphics cards, so I ended up having to install an older set of catalyst drivers and using a mod tool to install them. The newer Catalyst drivers wouldn't install.

HDD: 80GB HDD @ 4200rpm

This is where I think Acer skimped out the most. A 4200rpm HDD is definitely not what I would call "Top Speed", and hardly worthy of the Ferrari name. When I received my laptop, I found that Acer already partitioned the harddrive for me into 40 gig sections. Whether you choose that to be an advantage or not is up to you. I've recently been looking into upgrading it to at least a 5400rpm one as it's noticeably slower loading games and applications.

CD: 4xDVD+-RW and x16 CD-RW

What can I say other than absolutely fabulous. Being able to Burn DVD's and CD's on my laptop has been great as I've already burned probably 20 DVDs. Given that the Ferrari is an already expensive notebook, it's nice to see where some of that money went.

OS: Windows XP Professional

I made the mistake of playing around on my computer at 5:00 a.m. in the morning and accidentally clicking "OK" to the Update section and then going to make myself a sandwich. Much to my dismay, I came back and found that I had accidentally installed Windows XP Service Pack 2. If I can give you one word of advice if you buy this laptop, stick with SP1, as having Service Pack 2 creates some minor, but irritating conflicts with the 64 bit processor.

Network & Interface: Wireless 802.11b/g, bluetooth, Four USB2.0, DC in, S-video TV Out, Microphone/Line-in, Headphone/Speaker Line-out, FireWire

I haven't really had a chance to use the bluetooth yet but reading other reviews, I've heard that it's quite handy. I might get a bluetooth keyboard so I can play first person shooter games more effectively, but for the time being it's going un-used. Interestingly though, there is a button at the front of the laptop (accessible when even closed) that will enable or disable bluetooth. It's definitely a neat function. Other than that, having four USB 2.0 ports is a great feature. Being able to plug in a digital camera, a mouse, and a printer with 1 slot left is very handy. These are the things that are commonly overlooked by laptop buyers.

Display: 15.0' SXGA+ (1400x1050)

Beautiful would be the way to describe the LCD screen. Obviously not as bright as my desktop LCD, the Ferrari's display is sharp, quick, and has a native resolution of 1400x1050 which makes playing those games with your 3000+ and 9700pro that much better.

Pictures

Closeup of Touchpad (view larger image)

Above view of Ferrari 3400 (view larger image)

Angle view of Ferrari 3400 (view larger image)

Front view of Ferrari 3400 (view larger image)

Above view keyboard of Ferrari 3400 (view larger image)

Underneath view of Ferrari 3400 (view larger image)

Left-side view of Ferrari 3400 (view larger image)

Back-side view of Ferrari 3400 (view larger image)

Other Features

Sound

Onboard Realtek sound comes stock with the Acer Ferrari 3400. I won't lie, it's not that impressive, and I find that watching DVDs or downloaded movies or television shows is tough if I'm not sitting relatively close to the laptop. The speakers aren't that loud, and the game sound isn't great either unless you've got decent headphones. So if you're going to spend the $3,000 (Canadian Dollars) on this laptop as I did, get yourself a nice pair of Sennheiser 500+ headphones like I'm planning on doing.

Heat

Running programs like Speedfan, the laptop's system doesn't really get that hot. Sitting idle it heats up to around 40-45 degrees Celsius and perhaps 50 while playing games for an extended period of time. However on the downside, the side of the laptop where you'd rest your palm does get a little warm. It's not unbearable by any means, but if you're already feeling the heat outside, the heat on your palm won't really be that pleasant. However, as it's winter right now, I don't mind a bit as it makes for a good hand warmer!

Touchpad

The touchpad is great. It's quick, responsive, has a four-way scroll button, and is just as aesthetically pleasing as it is useful. What I did have to do though is go on the Acer site (www.acer.com) and download the Touchpad drivers so I could disable it while playing games or typing an essay. It got to be frustrating when I was typing and suddenly the cursor appeared somewhere else, or I was playing a game and my gun started firing every time I accidentally pressed on the touchpad with the palm of my hand.

Battery

Like I said before, given the mobile 3000+ I thought I would get a longer battery life. But 3 hours seems to be enough for whatever I want to do. I use my notebook for school and the longest lecture I have is 3 hours so for me, it works out perfectly. If you want more battery life though, you'll have to go with an Intel Pentium M processor.

Looks

To me, this laptop has it above the rest. The Alienware notebooks do look nice, but on the inside, they look just like every other laptop. Acer definitely thought through everything when designing the Ferrari. Besides the nice red coat finish on the outside, the inside's made of fibreglass, supposedly giving you that "Ferrari Feel". The Keyboard is slightly curved making it a little easier to type and also looking just that much sharper. It does get annoying though and a little embarrassing when people come up to me and tell me that it's cool looking. Occasionally it'll be girls...but let's not kid ourselves, maybe 1 in 4 will be a female. But if you want a laptop that stands out above the typical silver/grey/black look, then the Ferrari is definitely the way to go.

Overall

I'd have to give the laptop a 7 out of 10. The aesthetics of the laptop are obviously a reason that the price is slightly inflated, but also it's a fast action paced yet smaller sized laptop. Being able to play games well, burn dvd's, connect decently to wireless networks, and just have a nice overall looking laptop made it worth it for me. With all the high-powered desktop replacement notebooks that are out there, Acer managed to pull out a fast-action, half-life 2 playing notebook that's half the size of others with its capabilities. And if that isn't enough for you, they include a red Ferrari USB mouse with the Ferrari emblem to sweeten the deal!

Pricing and Availability

Acer Ferrari 3200

With an authentic glossy, scratch-resistant, Ferrari-red paint job, a cobalt and silver dashboard-styled keyboard, and the famed Italian car manufacturer's emblem gracing the chassis, the 3200 races to the head of the pack with its elegant design.

The Ferrari theme carries beyond the design and into the OS. After booting up the system, you're greeted with the sound of a car screaming around the racetrack, while images of Michael Schumacher's Formula 1 Ferrari, currently the top team on the circuit, serve as the desktop wallpaper and screensaver.

Under the hood, an Athlon 64 2800+ processor, 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 video card, and 512MB of DDR memory (upgradeable to 2GB) give this Ferrari the horsepower to compete with the boutique high-end systems by Voodoo and Alienware. Microsoft has yet to release the 64-bit version of Windows, so programs taking advantage of the high-performance capabilities are scarce, but at least you'll be ready to go when the software starts rolling onto the track.

We revved this system's engine with the resource-guzzling first-person shooter Far Cry. The 15-inch TFT-LCD display and video card handled the default graphical workload adequately, but when we upped the graphics quality above the medium setting, lag became an issue.

The only noticeable internal difference between the 3200 and its higher-priced competitors is the lack of a fast hard drive. While most high-performance gaming systems ship with at least 7,200-rpm hard drives, the Ferrari rolls with a scant 4,200 rpm, which we interpret to be one of the cost-cutting measures employed to allow this system to sport a sub-$2,000 price tag.

The slot-loading multiformat optical drive is perfect for multimedia junkies, as it supports DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-ROM, and DVD-RAM on top of the standard CD-recordable formats. The four-in-one card reader accommodates Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, SmartMedia, and Memory Stick formats, but we were surprised that Acer didn't include the CompactFlash format still found inside many digital cameras.

The internal speakers were serviceable, but, as with any gaming notebook, you'll prefer to hook up a better sound system when you're at home to get the full effect of game soundtracks.

Despite the inclusion of so many high-end components, the Ferrari 3200 turns in a more-than-adequate battery life of just under 3 hours, which included a few rounds of Rise of Nations. With that type of endurance you should also be able to get through a couple of DVDs on your next flight.

During intense gaming sessions, enough heat seeped through the chassis to cause significant discomfort, especially toward the bottom of the keyboard where you typically rest your left hand. This is something Acer should work to improve if they are targeting gamers with this system.

Rounding out the 3200 is an ample array of connectivity options, including Ethernet, modem, Bluetooth, Fast Infrared, and 802.11b/g. The system offers a great complement of ports-most importantly, four USB 2.0 ports and FireWire. It's a small point of contention, but we would have liked to see the USB ports spaced around the chassis rather than in one uniform line on the left side of the notebook, as most users will place their mice on the right side.

As the Ferrari 3200 crossed the finish line, the comprehensive results were quite impressive. Any system packing this much power with a price tag under $2,000 has to be considered a solid contender.


QUICK SPECS
Acer Ferrari 3200
www.acer.com/us
CPU AMD Athlon 64 2800+
Operating System Windows XP Professional
RAM/Expandable to 512 MB DDR/2GB
Hard Drive 4,200-rpm, 80GB
Optical Drive 2.4X DVD+R/2.4X DVD+RW/4X DVD-R/2X DVD-RW/8X DVD-ROM/2X DVD-RAM/16X CD-R/8X CD-RW/24X CD-ROM
Display/Resolution 15-inch/SXGA+
Graphics/Video Memory 128 MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
Wireless Networking 802.11b/g
Ports Four USB 2.0, FireWire, parallel, VGA, modem, Ethernet, S-Video, IR, headphones, mic
PC Card Slots Type II PC Card slot
Memory Card Slots Four-in-one card reader for Memory Stick, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital, SmartMedia
Weight 6.6 pounds
Dimensions 13 x 10.7 x 1.2 inches
Service and Support 1 year, parts and labor; upgradeable to 3 years with on-site service
PCMark04 3413
3DMark2001 10859
Battery Life (Wi-Fi On/Off) 2:50/2:50
Wireless Performance (5/50 feet) 12.3 Mbps/9.1 Mbps

Acer Ferrari 1004WTMi

Acer has added a subcompact to its lineup of Ferrari-branded notebooks. The Acer Ferrari 1004WTMi sports the same exotic good looks as its full-sized stable mates, but in a much more totable 3.7-pound package. Unlike some other ultraportables, however, you’ll have to make do without an integrated optical drive. Still, there’s a lot to like about this $1,999 bundle.

We like the current generation’s understated color scheme (black with red accents) much more than the original Acer Ferrari’s garish sports-car-red paint job. The yellow Ferrari shield logos on the lid and keyboard deck are prominent but not overpowering. The bundle includes extra touches, such as both three- and six-cell batteries, a compact, matching Bluetooth mouse, a carrying case, and even a Bluetooth VoIP phone for use with Skype or other Internet phone or chat services.

The fit-and-finish of this Ferrari is superb, and the 0.8-inch-thick unit is comfortable to carry and easy to slip into a briefcase. The slot-loading external 6X DVD+/-RW drive is nicely designed, though we wish Acer had found a way to integrate it into the notebook. This configuration also includes a spacious 160GB hard drive with an active protection system to prevent data loss should you drop the system.

Open the carbon-fiber lid and you’ll find a bright, sharp 12.1-inch glossy widescreen. The 1280 x 800-pixel resolution makes for sharp text and graphics, though fonts appear fairly small at the default settings. As with similar panels, viewing-angle performance is good side to side, but the image looks washed out when viewed from even slightly above.

On the plus side, the screen’s vivid color rendition is gorgeous, and DVD playback looked great, with very little motion blur. The front-firing stereo speakers lacked bass punch, but overall the sound was distortion-free and fairly loud for an ultraportable. A rotating webcam sits atop the screen, making this system handy for videoconferencing.

One place Acer had to compromise was the keyboard. The keys are comfortable and quiet, but the layout will feel cramped to people with larger hands, and the ancillary keys are tiny. The touchpad is responsive, though, and its large mouse buttons are easy to hit accurately.

The Ferrari’s 1.8-GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 engine delivered an above-average MobileMark 2005 score of 208. Forget about 3D gaming with its integrated ATI graphics; the system scored just 1,459 on 3DMark03. The machine’s 3 hours and 15 minutes of battery life from the six-cell power pack isn’t terrible, but it’s about an hour below average for an ultraportable.

Acer has equipped the Ferrari with a draft 802.11n Wi-Fi radio, but the final 802.11n spec hasn’t yet been finalized; that should happen sometime in the first half of 2007. And without an 802.11n router, you won’t see the benefit. Wireless throughput on our tests wasn’t great: 9.1 Mbps at a distance of 15 feet from an access point and just 7 Mbps at 50 feet.

Port selection is fairly standard, and we like the inclusion of a 5-in-1 card reader. Acer has included some nice software touches, such as a floating pallet of widgets to invoke the various power-management schemes, presentation mode, data security management, and recovery utilities. Third-party software is limited to Norton AntiVirus and NTI’s CD/DVD creation tools.

The one-year warranty is typical, though for this type of upscale machine, we would expect 24/7 phone support. The lines are open only Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT.

As long as you can live without an integrated optical drive, the Acer Ferrari 1004WTMi is a good-looking performer that should suit buyers who want a little flash in their ultraportable.

QUICK SPECS

Acer Ferrari 1004WTMi
www.acer.com/us

CPU

1.8-GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-56

Operating System

Windows XP Professional

RAM/Expandable to

1GB/2GB

Hard Drive/Speed

160GB/5,400 rpm

Optical Drive

6X DVD+/-R (external)

Display/Resolution

12.1 inches/1280 x 800

Graphics/Video Memory

ATI Radeon Xpress 1150/shared

Wireless Networking

Draft 802.11n, Bluetooth

Ports

Four USB 2.0, FireWire, HDMI, VGA, S-Video, Ethernet, modem, IR, headphone (with S/PDIF support), mic, docking connector

Card Slots

One Type II PC Card, 5-in-1 memory card reader

Weight

3.7 pounds

Size

11.9 x 8.7 x 0.8 inches

Warranty/Support

One-year parts and labor limited warranty/lifetime toll-free (7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. CST Monday to Friday; 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CST Saturday)

MobileMark 2005

208

3DMark03

1,459

Battery Life (Wi-Fi On/Off)

Could Not Run / 3:15

Wireless Performance (15/50 feet)

9.1 Mbps/ 7 Mbps


Acer Aspire 9810-6994

It's not until you see the Acer Aspire 9810-6994 in person that you realize just how big it is. It looks like a stage prop-an everyday item up-sized for the audience members way in the back. But it's real, all 17 hulking pounds of it. Clearly, it was not designed as a portable PC but rather as a desktop computer that folds away and perhaps gets taken to a weekend house as the entertainment center.

Pop the latches on either side of the screen and lift the inch-thick lid, and you'll find the reason for the machine's bulk: A 20.1-inch widescreen. If you do actual work on the laptop (it begs to be used for image and video editing), you can have several windows open at once, and the 1680 x 1050-pixel resolution makes for sharp, readable text. Images and DVDs looked fantastic on the big screen, and the excellent viewing angle means a few people can watch at a time. And there's plenty of volume to share, thanks to the front-firing speakers and integrated subwoofer.

Needless to say, there's room for a comfortable full-sized keyboard and number pad. Blue-lit multimedia control keys reside to the left, and four application-launch buttons sit above the function row. We like the compact remote control for Windows Media Center functions of the Windows Vista Premium OS and that Acer has included all the A/V cables and connectors you're likely to need. Ports are plentiful, including a 5-in-1 card reader, an A/V input (for connecting camcorders and the like), S-Video, DVI-D, and even serial and parallel ports.

Acer includes a utility for setting up the twin 120GB 5,400-rpm hard drives in a RAID configuration. There's also a built-in 1.3-megapixel video camera for videoconferencing and a VoIP phone for the ExpressCard slot, as well as a PC Card slot and Bluetooth connectivity.

The machine's 2.16-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor helped deliver a very good score of 4,967 on PCMark05, and the 256MB Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 GPU delivers good 3D gaming punch (though avid gamers will wish for a 512MB engine). While playing a DVD, this system petered out at 1 hour and 17 minutes, the shortest time in the group, but we don't expect much in the way of battery life for any of these systems. Running F.E.A.R. on a Vista machine requires a patch (version 1.08 from Sierra). We managed to get it up and running on the 9810, with a decent score of 46 fps on autodetect. We were surprised by the 9810's low wireless throughput, however: just over 3 Mbps at both 15 and 50 feet from our router.

We encountered other minor annoyances. Media Center couldn't detect the TV tuner when we tried to set up TV functions, and Media Center also informed us there was no utility installed to handle the HD-DVD we wanted to watch. Our unit was one of the first with Vista, so we suspect the HD-DVD and TV tuner issues will be resolved on production models.

The 9810's clamshell design isn't as clever as Dell's 20-inch XPS M2010, which features a detachable wireless keyboard. But if you want the largest screen yet available in a laptop and HD-DVD (so long as you find your own player), the Aspire 9810 has the eye candy and performance you're looking for.
acer aspire 9810-6994

QUICK SPECS
Acer Aspire 9810-6994
www.acer.com/us
CPU 2.16-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7400
Operating System Windows Vista Ultimate
RAM/Expandable to 2GB/2GB
Hard Drive/Speed 240GB/5,400 rpm
Optical Drive HD-DVD, DVD+/-R
Display/Resolution 20.1 inches/1680 x 1050
Graphics/Video Memory Nvidia GeForce Go 7600/256MB
Wireless Networking 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth
Ports Four USB 2.0, FireWire, Coaxial, DVI-D, S-Video, VGA, S/PDIF, Ethernet, modem, IR, serial, parallel, headphone, mic
Card Slots ExpressCard, Type II PC Card

Memory
Card Slots

5-in-1
Weight 17.2
Size 18.7 x 13.9 x 2.4
Warranty/Support One-year parts and labor/lifetime toll-free (Monday to Friday 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. CT; weekends 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
PCMark05 4,967
3DMark03 7,689
Battery life (hours:minutes) 1:17
Wireless Performance (15/50 feet) 3.3 Mbps / 3.3 Mbps

Acer Aspire 9500

Entertainment notebooks usually come in two sizes: large and very large. Acer’s Aspire 9500 breaks that mold with a slim 17-inch footprint that you can take on the road. It’s a very good machine for watching DVDs, listening to music, and even watching and recording TV. The system’s high-end hardware will make any multimedia maven happy.

For a 17-inch laptop, the Aspire 9500 favors a slim-and-sexy appearance over a fat all-in-one approach. A gunmetal silver-and-black exterior masks a tight form factor, which is uniquely possible for a Taiwanese manufacturer like Acer because it actually designs and builds its own notebooks, from the BIOS to the motherboards. The effort has paid off with a large notebook that’s 1.5-inches tall and weighs only 8.4 pounds.

The prime function of the Aspire is entertainment, which it can do well. The glossy 17-inch LCD supports a WXGA+ resolution of up to 1440 x 900 pixels. DVD video playback looks flawless thanks to ATI’s Mobility Radeon X700 graphics processor, and this system’s 3DMark03 score of 6,126 means that all but the most hard core gamers will be satisfied with the 9500’s performance when playing 3D titles.

When it comes to productivity performance, the Aspire 9500 blazes through most chores, thanks to a 2-GHz Pentium M processor and a whopping 2GB of RAM. In fact, this notebook’s MobileMark 2005 score of 251 is as high as what some dual-core notebooks turned in for this month’s cover story.

With the Wi-Fi radio turned off, the 9500 lasted for well over three hours unplugged, which is a good runtime for a desktop replacement system. The test did not run successfully with Wi-Fi on.

The entertainment software is headlined by Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Center Edition, which simplifies the entire experience of creating a music library, collecting and organizing digital photos, or watching a DVD with the ease of pushing a button. The OS is a definite bonus for neophytes who don’t like to wade through six different programs to look at their photos. Media Center dovetails nicely with the Aspire’s integrated TV tuner; for those intimidated by the thought of setting up TV on a computer, the MCE makes everything idiot-proof.

The design, functionality, and software of the Aspire 9500 are all good enough to demand your attention when shopping for a large entertainment notebook, but it’s disappointing that Acer has forgone instant-on capability here, especially considering it has total control over the BIOS and motherboard. It’s not a deal breaker, but it is a bummer.

Besides that omission, the Aspire 9500 gets a lot of little things right. Two rows of quick buttons allow you to easily access Media Center, Internet, e-mail, and other commonly used applications. On/Off buttons for both 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth help extend the battery life, so you don’t needlessly drain the power with unused wireless radios.

A 5-in-1 memory card reader joins DVI and S-Video ports on the rear. Another small improvement is the choice of a slot-loading optical drive over the traditional ejection tray; in other words, the CD/DVD drive “sucks in” discs automatically so you’ll never break another ejection tray.

Acer does not have a large presence in North America, and customer support is limited to telephone and e-mail channels, which are often difficult to locate on Acer’s Web site. However, the company is making inroads into major retail chains like Circuit City, so you’re not limited to blindly buying its notebooks over the Internet.

Overall, the Acer Aspire 9500 is an excellent notebook for entertainment enthusiasts who’d rather have a manageable size and weight over a behemoth that tries to do too much. It’s, ahem, something to aspire to.

Strengths: Big beautiful screen; SPDIF output; Plenty of USB ports.
Weaknesses: TV tuner didn’t work; Fat 32 partitions (disc restore only works with FAT 32 partitions too); No SPDIF input; lousy remote; proprietary dongles; price dropped $300 the very next week… hastening buyers remorse.
Summary: TV tuner didn’t work. Don’t expect Acer tech support to be of any help. There instructions: “reinstall and RMA”. Yeah, you’ve got a hangnail, let’s solve it with amputation.

Later found out that Mobile magazine gave Acer tech an F grade in mid 2005 (worst of the manufactures tested); I unfortunately have to concur. Luckily I drive through Temple, TX on my trips to Austin, so I can “drop in” personally if there is ever an RMA need ;-)

After substantial research and an extensive process of elimination, I found the solution.

Turns out the TV tuner circuitry doesn’t have an adequate preamp (or bad soldering) and thus requires an extremely hot signal. So even if your TV and cable modem work fine, you may need to buy a signal booster (or 2) if you have long cable runs and/or splitters in the line.

Thought the built in capture card would be hardwired to bus (maximizing speed), but later read that it’s likely wired to an internal USB port OR shares the Card bus (which can cause voltage problems). As the decoder exhibits significant delay, I think it’s wired to internal USB. So probably better/cheaper to just buy a different model and an external tuner/capture device.

The SPDIF digital out is the relatively uncommon Mini Toslink (i.e. optical) form factor. This ought to be mentioned in the documentation, as there is also “electrical” SPDIF. This caused some aggravation until I found a website were another consumer lamented how even Acer tech support didn’t even know the difference.

The laptop is quite speeding except when running Media Center or MS Moviemaker; then it’s time to get out the oars. Suggest nixing both progs and using one of the many third party alternatives.

During my TV tuner & SPDIF troubleshooting, I read that MS XP Media Center Edition has a host of crummy DRM issues that could be confused with hardware/software problems, so possible consumers may want to save themselves aggravation by not buying “Media Center” laptops.

Acer also appears to install by default its own “remote assistance” devices on their laptops, which is almost as displeasing as the inanely sized Fat 32 partitions.

I’ll continue to update.


QUICK SPECS
Acer Aspire 9500
www.acer.com/us
CPU 2-GHz Intel Pentium M 760
Operating System Windows XP Media Center Edition
RAM/Expandable to 2GB/N/A
Hard Drive 5,400-rpm 120GB
Optical Drive 2.4X DVD+R DL
2.4X DVD+RW
2X DVD-RW
4X DVD+R
4X DVD-R 2X DVD-RW
8X DVD-ROM
10X CD-W
24X CD-R
24X CD-ROM
Display/Resolution 17-inch/WXGA+
Graphics/Video Memory ATI Mobility Radeon X700/256MB DDR2 Video Memory
Wireless Networking 802.11b/g, Bluetooth
Ports Five USB 2.0, FireWire, S-Video, DVI, VGA (on dongle), IR, parallel, serial, headphone, mic, line out, S/PDIF out, Gigabit Ethernet, modem
PC Card Slots One Type II
Memory Card Slots 5-in-1 card reader
Weight 8.4 pounds
Size 15.8 x 11.3 x 1.5 inches
Service and Support One-year parts and labor
MobileMark 251
3DMark03 6,126
Battery Life (Wi-Fi On/Off) Could Not Run/ 3:17
Wireless Performance (5/50 feet) 10.3 Mbps/ 2.1 Mbps