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If none of the designer desktops in our group test tickle your fancy, how about the ultimate in stylish notebooks? Built to the highest specifications, in conjunction with Ferrari, and finished in the familiar bright red, Acer's latest offering is guaranteed to make others green with envy.
From the Ferrari crest on the palm rest to the picture of the F1 pit team in the Bios, everything about the 3200 exudes style. The keyboard is angled at 5 deg to provide a more comfortable typing position than traditional notebooks. The touchpad has a four-way cursor pad in addition to the standard mouse button equivalents and four programmable shortcut buttons run along the top of the keyboard. You also get a matching optical mouse. It's 3kg, bt fully featured and some will enjoy the kudos of carrying this notebook around.
Inside, things are even more interesting. The engine is a 1.59GHz Athlon64 2800+ processor, backed by 512MB of DDR memory, while an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 with 128MB of dedicated Ram handles graphics. The impact of the latter was instantly apparent in our tests, with the Ferrari achieving a creditable 65 frames per second (fps) in Unreal Tournament 2003. Moreover, a 3Dmark 2003 score of 3,161 is the highest we've seen from a notebook, making this an ideal machine for anyone who wants to do more than just word processing on the move.
The system comes with an 80GB hard disk and a slot-loading DVD-writer, capable of handling all current formats of recordable CDs and DVDs. The 15in screen, at 1,400 x 1,050 pixels, is better than many desktop displays. A standard VGA socket at the back of the notebook can be used to mirror the display for presentations, or expand your Windows Desktop onto a second monitor.
The Ferrari's communications capabilities are first class. Along with the usual 56K modem there's an RJ45 socket for Gigabit Lan, 802.11g wireless networking, infra-red and Bluetooth. There's also a switch on the side to quickly disable the Wifi capabilities - handy when using the system in sensitive areas such as planes. Four USB sockets are sensibly arranged side by side, which should mean none are blocked when using larger connectors on items such as USB keys. A mini-Firewire socket rounds everything off.
Given the power on offer we expected the worst when it came to battery life, but were pleasantly surprised - the Ferrari 3200 lasted nearly three hours in our tests. This is nothing compared to the latest Centrino models but excellent when you consider the performance.
Alas, nothing is perfect. Acer's software bundle is enough to get you going but doesn't include any kind of office suite. Given the growing popularity of the open-source Open Office, this is disappointing. In addition to the hardware-specific utilities, there is Cyberlink PowerDVD, NTI CD-Maker and a trial of Norton Antivirus.
Acer's warranty is only for one year but it is an International Travellers' deal, which covers you for use overseas.
Contact: Acer 0870 900 2237
www.acer.co.uk
Specifications:
- Windows XP Professional
- AMD Athlon 64 2800+
- 512MB DDR-Ram
- 80GB hard disk
- DVD writer (DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW/Ram)
- 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
- 15in display
- 3kg
- 330 x 272 x 31 mm (w x d x h)
See also:
A good-value business notebook, with a stylish design and a high-contrast X-black screen 04 Jan 2005
Good battery life for a 15in screen laptop, plus a fingerprint scanner for security 19 Aug 2004All Notebooks & Tablets PCs
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