ACER FERRARI 1200 ULTRAPORTABLE NOTEBOOK

Acer has announced the Ferrari 1200, an all new ultraportable notebook series, as a successor to its Ferrari 1100. This show stopper series comes in the true spirit of the Italian race car. Well, at least they have tried to bring in some features that is supposed to give you the feel of driving a real Ferrari, like the anodized metal touchpad that resembles the acceleration and brake pedals of a F1 car. Also the Acer Ferrari 1200 has a carbon-fiber cover(this material is actually used in race cars) that is lighter and stronger than magnesium alloy, giving it the ultra portability. Another feature to imitate the race car is an unique ventilation system that supposedly “echoes the exhaust pipes of F1 cars”. To finish off the dressing, it has a tasteful matted finish with soft-touch coating and of course has the strategically placed Ferrari Racing Shield logos.

Now coming to the not so important features, the Acer Ferrari 1200 is driven by the AMD Turion X2 Ultra processor with AMD M780G chipset, and packs up to 4GB of DDR2 memory and includes a 'large capacity' SATA hard drive, Acer InviLink WiFi Certified network connection, Bluetooth connectivity, a biometric fingerprint scanner along with Acer DASP hard drive protection system, an integrated slot-loading DVD SuperMulti optical drive and 2nd generation Dolby Home Theater audio for the ultimate multimedia experience. The Acer Ferrari 1200 sports a 12.1-inch CrystalBrite LCD with LED backlit display, a webcam and comes with an exclusive Bluetooth wireless mouse and an optional Xpress VoIP handset .

There is no word on how much it is going to cost you to drive a Acer Ferrari 1200, but rest assured that it is going to be more than the older model and hopefully you can get hold of one by the first half of 2009.

FANCY AND EXCLUSIVE - ACER'S FERRARI 1100 NOTEBOOK

If you are looking for a fancy and exclusive notebook then check out Acer's Ferrari 1100 laptop, which has a price tag of $3,999 for 12.1 inch wide screen display along with great portability option. Seems like having a great demand of Ferrari 1100 across Australia, as a reason only 99 of them are on sale and approved for the people that prove a point of their need. And why not, it is pretty impressive with 1.91Kg and great slot-loading DVD with backlit LED screen. You get a RAM speed of 2GB, hard drive of 250GB along with Dolby Home Theatre audio integrated. The notebook follows AMD’s Mobile Turion 64 x 2 processor integrated with graphics courtesy of ATI Radeon X 1250.

You can find Acer Ferrari 1100 review here

ACER FERRARI 1100 REVIEW

The latest in the Ferrari series by Acer, this one is a top of the line product, with quite a decent configuration. The performance is fast, the design is slick but the power dies out soon.

Design
The design and color scheme is like the Ferrari brand only, with the lid having the familiar race style check pattern and the Ferrari logo. They keyboard area is glossy while the carbon fiber is styled in a matte finish. The keys are a bit stiff for the normal keyset and the touchpad follows the same race check style. The laptop is ultra-portable and is very sleek, but it is a bit bulky and weighs around 4.4 pounds. The screen size is 12” and it supports a maximum resolution of 1280x800. The color quality is good but the screen suffers from reflectivity problems and a narrow viewing angle. A 1.3 MP web-cam sits on screen top for video conferencing etc. The connectivity options are average, with 3 USB ports, FireWire, VGA, S-Video, headphone/Mic ports, Ethernet and a 5-in-1 card slot.

Performance
The notebook comes with a formidable configuration, and has an AMD 2.3 GHz Turion X2 processor, 4GB RAM and 250 GB hard drive. It achieves 2,680 PCMarks and 1,765 on 3DMark 03. The graphics subsystem suffers badly, and it is just average for a notebook of this kind. With the Ati onboard GPU, you can't expect to play latest games at good settings. The wireless performance is good and the included WiFi is able to get high speeds. The battery of the notebook lasted somewhere around 2.5 hours on full load, and it should be able to get 3+ hours runtime for normal applications and regular tasks.

Conclusion
The design scores a big one, and the performance is decent too. The only part which suffers is the graphics, and a better GPU could have been included. The battery is decent and the connectivity is good along with the networking. Overall, a great notebook.

Pros
+ Good screen
+ Great design

Cons
- Poor GPU
- A little costly

Value For Money

Our Rating

ACER FERRARI 1005WTMi REVIEW

A notebook, which is a result of collaboration of 4 major companies in their respective fields viz. Acer, Ferrari, AMD, Ati, is put through our tests, and we smell burning performance. Or is it the burning engine, a failure ? Lets find out.

Design
The laptop has a nice finish, made by carbon fibres, with the Ferrari logo styling the top. The product weighs 1.60 kgs which is not at all heavy. The laptop is slim, and the overall built quality is good.The front face of the laptop has a 5 in 1 card reader which supports Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Multimedia card, xD-card, Secure digital. Speakers line the right and left of the front panel, along with the audio ports at the center. The audio ports consist of Line-In jack, headphone with Spdif support. 2 switches at center control bluetooth and WiFi, and an Infrared port right next to them. Left of the laptop has the Kensington lock, IEEE 1394 port, USB 2.0 , PC-card slot. Cool air-vents make their presence felt at the left side. Right has the LAN , modem, external VGA port and 2 more USB ports.

The screen is a 12.1” WXGA TFT which supports 1280x800 resolution, and it is very crisp and sharp. There is a 225 degree rotating webcam on top of the screen, and a LED which shows the status of the webcam. Protective rubber pads around the screen protect the screen from damage. A microphone is place right under the screen , near the Acer logo. They keyboard is surrounded by a stylish brushed-metal design, which gives it a sporty look. Power key is present on topleft corner and caps, num , HDD LEDs are present on the top of the keypad. 4 buttons viz. P for programmable, e for Acer empowering, email and web browser are provided which makes accessing these applications a breeze. The touchpad is quite nice with Ferrari logo on it. Four LEDs on the base show the power , bluetooth, WiFi, and battery status. Metal grills around the laptop conceal the speakers. The product comes with a external HD-DVD drive which can be connected via Firewire interface.

The product comes bundled with a VoIP phone, which was sleek , used bluetooth to connect with the laptop operation and charged via PC port. It could be switched ON/OFF to save battery.

Performance
The laptop had a sluggish feel to it, because if so many utilities installed. It achieved a decent score of 2497 in PCMark 05. A score of 1392 in 3DMarks, which is not at all good. The radeon Xpress 1150 chipset was the reason for this low score. The system is not meant for gaming , but otherwise the performance in other fields is fine. The ample storage space, Dual core AMD processor make the laptop good, but more RAM could have been added, because the current 512MB is not something to rave about.

Conclusion
The performance is just average, not something which justifies its price. The Ferrari logo is the only major plus about the notebook, apart from the amazing design factor. Only for Ferrari fans!

Pros
+ Good design, build
+ Ample storage and processor power

Cons
- Sluggish behavior
- Poor Graphics
Value For Money

Our Rating