(Source: Hardware Upgrade Italia)

If you didn’t like reading a Russian-language review of the F1000, here’s an English-language one by TrustedReviews.

But like ZOOM.CNews.ru, TR couldn’t give the F1000 unconditional praise. Despite its first class design and strong performance, the weak battery life and lack of optical drive integration prove to be undeniable weaknesses, and resulted in the 12.1″ ultraportable notebook being awarded an overall rating of only 7 out of 10.

TR concluded that, “The Acer Ferrari 1000 is a very attractive package that manages to wear the Ferrari badge with pride due to the brute force approach of an AMD Turion X2 ML-60. The sleek style of the Ferrari 1000 certainly has a lot of appeal but you’ll have to put up with an external optical drive, which seems a step backwards when Intel based rivals can integrate one yet are even lighter. But while you might be able to cope with that, the lack of battery life in an ultra-portable is a flaw that could prove harder to ignore.”

(Source: NotebookReview.com)

Okay, maybe it was a bit harsh to label the recently introduced Asus Lamborghini VX1 notebook as a copycat of our beloved Acer Ferrari notebooks - especially since the yellow-finished VX1 does look pretty spiffy.

But let’s just see which Ferrari notebook the VX1 most closely resembles anyway. 15″ screen, 160GB hard disk drive, 2GB DDR2 RAM and 512MB nVidia GeForce Go 7400VX graphics card - that’s what the Asus comes with. Hmm… I’d say the Ferrari 5000, even though it comes with an AMD Turion 64 X2 and a 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics card, instead of the X2’s Intel Core Duo and nVidia GPU.

Pricing details haven’t been released, but there’s little doubt it’s going to be competitive - at least, against Acer’s own co-branded notebooks.

[News via NotebookReview.com]

India, Russia and now, South Africa. These are countries where Acer has done remarkably well in recent years - with a recent news release confirming that the World No. 3 notebook vendor has taken top spot in South Africa’s notebook market.

Its 48% year-on-year growth allowed it to capture a 23% notebook market share, pushing it a step upwards from its previous position of number two.

As such, Acer now holds a 10% market share in the combined notebook and desktop market in South Africa for the second quarter of 2006.

(Source: Acer)

While Americans will have to endure a long wait till October before getting a chance to lay their grubby hands on an Acer Ferrari 5000, British magazine Computeract!ve have already completed a review of the stylish machine.

Not surprisingly, the AMD Turion 64 X2-powered notebook got a thumbs up for its performance, especially given the 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics card equipped. But it seems fan noise, processor heat and a relatively small hard disk drive (it already comes with a 160GB HDD…) were problems.

Overall, it was awarded 4 out of 5 stars, with a verdict most would have already expected: “The Ferrari price-premium doesn’t detract from this quality, high-specification notebook.” Pity the £1699 (US$3212) price puts it completely out of my league.

(Source: Acer)

Those hoping to get one of the snazzy Acer Ferrari 5000 notebooks first announced in May will have to wait a little longer. It’s been officially confirmed that the AMD Turion 64 X2-powered notebook will not arrive state-side until October.

While there is no official confirmation as to the source of the delay, some are speculating that it is due to a shortage of Turion 64 X2 processors - not unlike speculation that the Dell XPS 700 is being delayed due to a shortage of the nVidia Nforce 590 chipset.

But whatever the reason it, there’s only one thing we can do. Wait.

[News via LaptopLogic.com]

Acer might have surrendered the title of World No. 3 notebook vendor to Toshiba in the first quarter (Q1), but it has managed to regain it by virtue of a 42% increase in shipments in the second quarter (Q2).

While there no single factor for this strong global gain has been provided, Acer’s recent moves to strengthen partnerships with its distribution channel have succeeded in fortifying its No. 1 position in Europe’s notebook market, and may have played some part in the worldwide statistics as well.

According to statistics from Gartner Dataquest, Acer had a 11.1% market share in Q2 - with only Dell and Hewlett-Packard with higher percentages.

[News via Digitimes]

(Source: IT News Online)

With all the top-of-the-line desktops and notebooks released in recent days, one might be tempted to forget about the budget-class, entry-level PCs Acer has used successfully to corner the Indian market.

One such PC released recently is the Acer Power 330, which is powered by the relatively dated 3.06GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor. It also comes with only 128MB DDR RAM, a 40GB (5400RPM) hard disk drive and a 15″ CRT monitor - a far cry from the specs of even the most average of computers in this “age”.

But who cares when it sells for only Rs. 17,999 (~US$388) ?

[News via IT News Online]

(Source: Norton)

Since January, new owners of Acer notebooks and desktops would have spotted a cute, little Norton CD pre-loaded with either Norton Antivirus or Internet Security 2006. That was part of a 3-year deal Acer made with Norton, which for some reason or another, has been modified this week.

What will happen is that Norton’s software will now be pre-installed, rather than pre-loaded with new Acer PCs. The install will be for a 90-day trial, which you can opt to buy when the trial period runs out.

Good? Bleh. Yet another so-so pre-install, and only a trial too. But if you’re a Norton-lover, like many mainstream users are, then you probably have nothing to complain about.