Acer Ferrari 1000

(Source: TrustedReviews)

Product: Acer Ferrari 1000
Type: Notebook

Configuration:

* AMD Mobile Turion™ 64 X2 Technology
* 12.1″ TFT LCD widescreen
* Acer InviLink 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi
* Bluetooth® 2.0
* Acer OrbiCam (1.3 megapixel webcam)
* Weight: 1.7kg

1. The stylish 12.1 ultraportable Acer debuted at Computex 2006 has finally been reviewed, but its by a Russian site though. So, I can only hope my understanding of Babelfish’s translation is accurate.

   From what I understand, they found the Acer Ferrari 1000 stylish or as Babelfish goes, “cannot be dull and uninteresting”. However, their had one key concern with the F1000: The need for frequent care of the housing of the notebook, i.e. smudge marks sticking to the finish. They also found it difficult to judge the Ferrari 1000’s AMD Turion 64 X2 processor with respect to Intel’s Core Duo due to the relative “newness” of AMD’s processor offering.

   All in all, ZOOM.CNews.ru awards Acer’s latest ultraportable offering a strong, but restrained overall rating of 7.9 out of 10. But they did note that theirs was an engineering model, and thus, not necessarily as polished as the one that we will bring home.

2. 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.”

1. The previous pictures of the Acer Ferrari 1000 we saw were only of the front-side of the system, leading us (or rather, me) to conclude that it wouldn’t be very much different styling-wise compared to the Ferrari 5000.

   Newer pictures, which you can check out at the Inquirer and Hardware Upgrade Italia (which is the source of the pic shown on the left) have shown the world (or rather, just all of you) how wrong I am.

   So, just look at those pics and remind yourself how blur I can be.

   P.S.: The F1000 looks so much cooler compared to the F5K, doesn’t it?

2. While the Ferrari 5000 is a desktop replacement notebook, the Acer Ferrari 1000 is the direct opposite: A 12.1″ ultraportable weighing around 1.7kg, equipped with on-board ATI RADEON XPRESS 1150 graphics (up to 512MB Hypermemory).

   The F1000 will, like its bigger bro, come with the Acer 1.3 megapixel Orbicam, but (most likely) not with a Bluetooth VOIP phone. Other than this, we still have no idea what kind of specs we’ll be seeing in Acer’s first AMD dual-core ultraportable offering.

   Oh yes, the 12.1″ screen is a glossy CrystalBrite widescreen, so glossy-haters will probably have to look elsewhere.

   P.S.: We currently have no idea whether the picture attached to Acer’s news release is for the F5000 or F1000, but we’ll presume both look about the same - just different in size. Found a picture of the F1000 thanks to gweilo8888.

3. It’s been announced that the highly anticipated 12.1″ Acer Ferrari 1000 and 15.4″ Ferrari 5000 (pictured) notebooks first spotted just before Computex Taipei 2006 will start shipping at the end of July.

   Each notebook is set to be priced at around €2000 (US$2543) - though the region in which this pricing will hold is currently uncertain (but since the news report used euros in its estimate, it’s entirely possible that this will be Europe’s price - one generally higher than that in the US).

   [News via Digitimes]

4. Acer announced a couple of days back that it was joining the Draft 802.11n party with the Ferrari 1000 notebook. More specifically, this means that the Ferrari 1000 will come equipped with InviLink Nplify technology, which is based on the pre-standard 802.11n wireless specification.

   For those who haven’t heard, 802.11n will enable wireless users to transfer data at up to 6 times current maximum data rates (300mbps on the 802.11n compared to the 54mbps on 802.11g). Of course, while this is only an optimal rate, it is already an optimistic one given Dell’s advertised 802.11n data rate of only 270mbps.

   So, will we consumers benefit from Acer’s first-mover initiative (or something close to it)? As I’ve written earlier at the House of Dell, I think not. Not only are 802.11n routers required before we can reap the advantages of the new draft spec, but there is also no guarantee that Acer will upgrade current draft models when the final spec is released (not that this really matters since official ratification probably won’t happen till end of next year).

   Thankfully, we probably won’t be hurt either, since Acer’s InviLink Nplify is backwards-compatible with 802.11a/b/g. But whether prospective buyers of the Ferrari 1000 will have to shoulder the extra cost of the InviLink Nplify component is still uncertain.