(Source: Acer)

Another British magazine weighs in on the Acer Ferrari 5000. This time, it’s PC Advisor, and like Computeract!ve before this, they have lots of good things to say.

As usual, they loved the design, but for a reason much different from others: Because th F5000 came with less red than usual. An interesting viewpoint, and one I have to admit crosses my mind every time I have a look at a picture of the stylish notebook. Of course, general performance was good, battery life was excellent, but game performance fell short of greatness.

Overall, one of Acer’s most stylish notebooks gets a thumbs up, with a rating of 9 out of 10 for build quality, 8 out of 10 for features and 7 out of 10 of value for money.

(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]

(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]

(Source: Hardware Upgrade Italia)

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.

(Source: TrustedReviews)

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.

[News via Tech Digest]

(Source: Acer)

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]