Acer Ferrari 1100 (AMD Turion X2 TL-66 Processor 2.3GHz, 4GB RAM)

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By Darius Chang, CNET Asia
Apr 16, 2008

Acer was one of the first to brand its machines with a sports car label. When the Gemstone design came about (in collaboration with BMW), Acer Ferrari notebooks briefly fell out of sight. Now it's back with a leaner and meaner design. While its predecessors are midsize portables, the latest iteration is a smaller thin-and-light number covered with a black chassis.

The Acer Ferrari has yet to be officially launched in this region, but in Australia it's retailing for a cool A$3,999 (S$5,034.19). Though the machine costs a pretty penny, when we first opened the box we were quite impressed with its value. The package comes bundled with a Bluetooth Voip headset and mouse (complete with Ferrari logo, of course), as well as a nice laptop slip cover. However, unless you are a diehard Ferrari supporter, at the Acer Ferrari 1100's asking price, you could easily get similar features in a less expensive portable.

Design

The build quality of the Acer 1100 is, in a nutshell, generally solid but needs more attention to details. On the one hand, the solid plastic body of this portable seems hardy enough and we like the carbon-fiber texture on the top cover and palmrest. On the other hand, the two wireless switches--one each for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth--are surprisingly flimsy for such an expensive machine. The touchpad buttons are also way too stiff and lack tactile feedback for mouse clicks.

The Ferrari influence on its design is apparent.
(click for larger image)

At 1.95kg and 34mm thick, it is not the epitome of a lightweight and sleek design, unlike its sportscar namesake. Granted, the Acer 1100 has an integrated optical drive, but so does the much cheaper Acer Aspire 2920 which has similar dimensions. A possible first for the Taiwan maker is the inclusion of touch-sensitive shortcut buttons for email, Internet and a programmable application. An Acer Empowering Technology button sits beside the power button and brings up audio, data security, lock, recovery, settings, Internet, power and presentation settings.

Features

Acer has made an obvious effort to let the owner know that the Ferrari 1100 offers a superior sound system. Stickers on the palmrest proclaim that the portable is Dolby Home Theater-compatible with virtual surround sound. Though its sound was a touch above the norm, the lack of a subwoofer makes the audio a little tinny. Fortunately, two headphone jacks are available, one of which is an S/PDIF digital output that can be hooked to external horns for better audio.

When it comes to the visuals, the Ferrari 1100 speeds down the median with average features. The 12.1-inch widescreen transflective display has a resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels. It is powered by an integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 1270 which, unlike the previous generation of integrated video solutions, comes with 64MB of discrete graphics memory that can be increased to 960MB by grabbing from the system RAM. This makes the Ferrari 1100 more than competent for almost any productivity tools and older games. No HDMI port is in sight which would have made it easier to link with an LCD or Plasma display, though you can still use the monitor and S-video ports which are a step down from the aforementioned digital output.

An interesting addition is a fingerprint sensor sans TPM security chip. Though the inclusion of the latter would have helped significantly for data security, the sensor does make logins a touch easier. For video-conferencing, a Webcam sits above the display and works in conjunction with a pair of stereo microphones. Acer claims to have incorporated echo cancellation and noise reduction technology in its audio pickup. But if you do not want the whole room to listen in on your conversation, simply link up the bundled Bluetooth Voip handset for private sessions.

We have a love-hate relationship with the slot-in optical drive. While it looks better than the standard tray system, it does not accept smaller 8cm discs and there is a possibility that improper insertion may scratch the surface. The Super Multi DVD writer is able to handle almost any flavor of DVD and CD formats.

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