March 14th, 2008Review: Acer Ferrari FR1002WTMi
3000 series Ferrari Notebook. The laptop was from Acer who is partners with Ferrari providing them technologies in their Formula 1 racing. The other Ferrari partner; AMD and now even ATI along with Acer set out to build another Rosso Corsa. Well let’s get the tyres smoking and go faster through this quarter mile appraisal.
Acer Ferrari FR1002WTMi (Laptop)
External HD DVD (IEEE 1394)
IEEE 1394 Cable
Bluetooth Ferrari Mouse
Bluetooth VoIP phone
Power Cable and Adaptor
3 Cell Li-Ion Battery
6 Cell Li-Ion Battery
Care Fabric (In a case)
Laptop Bag
Manual, Driver CD, and Warranty Card
Layout
Now we move on with the layout of the Ferrari laptop. The front face of the laptop has a 5-in-1 card reader. The five supported formats by the card reader are Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital, and xD-Picture Card. There are speakers on the left and right on the front panel. At the center are the audio ports and a couple of switches.
The audio ports consist of a Line-in Jack, Microphone-in Jack, Headphone/Line-out Jack with SPDIF support. The switches at the center are to activate and deactivate Bluetooth and WiFi. Just beside these two switches is the Infrared Port. The Left of the laptop reveals some neatly styled air-vents, a Kensington lock, a 6-pin IEEE 1394 port, USB 2.0, and a PC Card slot.
The Right of the laptop has two more USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit LAN port, Modem port, and an external display VGA port.
Features
Most laptops would have features that make it stand out form the other laptops in its range. That said this is a lifestyle product from Acer; a Ferrari branded laptop. The entire ‘Ferrari’ feel that you get from the laptop is outstanding; we are not talking about Ferrari drivers so don’t expect to see Mr. Schumi’s posters.
The laptop is built of carbon fiber and rubberized plastic. The rubberized plastic for the palm rest gives a good feel while typing and comfort to the wrists as well. The carbon fiber body of the laptop makes it light and maintains the portable aspect of this laptop.
The screen of the laptop is a 12.1-inch WXGA and uses Acer’s CrystalBrite Technology to provide the best viewing experience. The TFT LCD supports a widescreen resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels with a 16:10 ratio. The laptop graphics are powered by an onboard ATI chipset. The chipset provided is a RADEON XPRESS 1150 which is not actually the best and I’d have expected to see something like ATI’s X1600 chipset on a Ferrari branded laptop.
The standout feature for this laptop is Acer’s GraviSense Technology. This technology is used to keep the data on the HDD secluded even incase of shocks or vibrations that could cause data loss. There is a chip under the laptops HDD compartment, it activates and deactivates the GraviSense. A neat feature to keep all data secure and avert the minor occasions which could cause bad sectors and you’d end-up loosing data.
Battery Life
The Acer Ferrari came with two batteries one 3 cell and the other a 6 cell battery. The 6 cell battery under normal custom offered backup time of almost 3 hours while the 3 cell offered less than 90 minutes. The batteries were charged fully and then detached from the AC adaptor, with many applications like Word, playback of video and music the laptop did last exceptionally well.
In lastly, The Acer Ferrari FR1002WTMi sells for around Rs. 94,999 with a one-year guarantee. The price maybe steep, but for a Ferrari fan nothing can come close to the loveliness of this laptop. The performance is a downer for the laptop’s sales. Had it have had a improved graphics accelerator this laptop would have be just about perfect to please you petro heads and also help you around with your labor. At the end of the day it is a way of life product; only those who are crazy and at the same time big-shots who wish to show their fame will surely go-in for a laptop like this. So in simple words just like not everybody owns a Ferrari the same goes for the laptop.
December 20th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
First! Nah just kidding, reps for the post