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