Acer Ferrari 4000 Engineering Pre-production PR sample Review

With the Ferrari 4000 Acer has built an officially licensed notebook based around a highly successful Formula One team. Partnering with Scuderia Ferrari Acer have managed to lift themselves above the competition by joining forces with a seven-times World Champion and the team to back him up. As an official supplier of Ferrari they’ve got access to the exclusive Prancing Horse logo to uniquely distinct their notebook from the rest of the field. Whether it has the horsepower of a real Formula One race car or if it’s being overtaken by the Renault and McLaren we’ll find out.

You know it at first glance. It’s a Ferrari, it’s quality! I’m guessing most people are at least vaguely familiar with the car, the brand and their Formula One team. You don’t need to think you just have to see it – the Prancing Horse logo. Then you know it’s a Ferrari. It’s for the stylish and sleek and for those who want nothing but the best money can buy. They buy a Ferrari because they know what they can expect and they know it’ll deliver. It’s a culture.

With the above introduction the scene has been set at something more than what the ordinary notebook can live up to. This one has a story on its own and is more than just a random gathering of components assembled in a fancy chassis. I’m guessing this is what Acer’s PR department would like the buyers to think that they’re part of an exclusive circle. If you like Ferrari and want to buy a new notebook you might just as well stay in tune with the trend and buy an Acer Ferrari 4000 making you slick and chic!

The notebook weights 3 kilo with an included 400 gram battery but excluding its 600 gram power supply. It measures 36.5 cm wide, 26.5 cm deep and 4 cm tall.

Remark this is an Engineering Pre-production PR sample - so noiselever and battery time is probably better in the final version you can buy in the stores. Acer didn't tell us this fact before after the review

Processor	1800 MHz Mobile AMD Turion 64 (ML-34)
RAM	1024 MB DDR RAM
Harddrive	100 GB HD – 5400 RPM
Optical Drive	DVD–RW Double Layer
Graphics Chip	ATi Radeon X700 with 128 MB dedicated RAM
Display	15,4” WSXGA+ (1680x1050)
Communication	V.90 modem, 10/100/1000 Mbit Ethernet, IEEE 1394 FireWire, 802.11 b/g WLAN
Battery	Li-Ion
Operating System	Windows XP Home/Pro with Service Pack 2
Pointing Device	Touchpad w/ scroll-wheel
Weight	3.0 kilo
Other	5-in-1 Card Reader
Price	USD $1935

At the top left of the notebook you’ll find the power button in addition to three LEDs. The LEDs shows hard disk activity and whether you’ve activated CAPS LOCK and num lock or not. At the top right of the notebook you’ll find four programmable hotkeys. They allow you to easily open your favourite email program and preferred internet browser while being customizable to your liking.

Acer has tried to design the keyboard with curved lines making it trendier for the fashion conscious. By doing so they’ve made the Enter button smaller and curvier so it fits with their design of a semi-ergonomic keyboard. Even though the notebook is shipped with a big 15.4” widescreen monitor they haven’t made use of the extra space for the keyboard. It’s rather small in comparison and they could’ve included a built-in numeric keypad or gone with a fully ergonomic design. Other than that it’s a fresh design change though the Enter button can be a little small at times.

Full size | Medium size

Full size | Medium size

The Ferrari 4000 features a big 15.4” widescreen monitor running with a native resolution of 1680x1050. The high resolution gives you a lot of room for you applications or big screen DVD playback. It’s also perfectly fit for high-resolution gaming since the Ferrari 4000 has the power to render enough frames for smooth gameplay.

On the left side of the notebook you’ll find one USB 2.0 port as well as one FireWire port. There’s also been room for the modem and Ethernet ports in addition to a big fan and an extern monitor port plus a single PCMCIA port. On the right side there’re three USB 2.0 ports and the DVD drive.

The DVD drive of the Ferrari 4000 deserves a little mentioning as it’s somewhat special. Instead of having a regular DVD drive where you have to place the disk in it they’re using a slip-in drive instead. This way you don’t have to wait for the physical drive to pop out when you can easily insert the disk right away. It does seem a bit noisy at times though I don’t think it has anything specific to do with the slip-in drive itself. Whether it’s more damaging to the disks over time have yet to be seen but it’s certainly a smart gimmick. Also to the right side of the notebook is the power plug as well as a Kensington lock. The back is stripped for ports expect for a S-Video out plug in addition to a DVI-D port and a plug for the Acer ezDock.

The front of the Acer Ferrari 4000 is the most interesting as it contains a pair of speakers with one in each side as well as a built-in 5-in-1 card reader to the left. There’s also a built-in microphone plus an infrared port. You’ll also find two status LEDs showing if power is on and the battery status. Rounding thins off there’s a Line-In and a Line-Out port in addition to Bluetooth and wireless LAN indicators. The WLAN indicator will flash red when not connected to a suitable access point while it’s always-on if connected. The Bluetooth function features blue light. It can be a little irritating with the glowing lights if you don’t like case-modding or would prefer to keep the illumination to a minimum. Luckily the lights can be turned off though you’ll also loose the internet connection.

4 x USB 2.0 ports
5-in-1 Card Reader
1 x RJ-11 jack
1 x RJ-45 jack
1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
1 x Line-In jack
1 x Line-Out jack
1 x DC-in jack
1 x 32 bit Type II PC Card slot
1 x Extern monitor port
1 x S-Video Out
1 x DVI-D
1 x Acer ezDock
1 x Kensington Lock
1 x Built-In Microphone

Full size | Medium size

Full size | Medium size

Full size | Medium size

Full size | Medium size

Power on, fan on. Power off, fan off. And that’s the way the cookie crumbles. In other words the Acer Ferrari 4000 is quite noisy. This is quite unfortunate though understandable since it’s built around a loud and proud Formula One team. If playing an intense computer game or wearing headphones you might not notice.

Otherwise the fan is always spinning generating a lot of noise even when there’s no call for it. Could they instead have captured the rumbling thunder of a real Ferrari Formula One race car it might just have been worth it! Sadly they couldn’t. Therefore this is definitely not a quite notebook and not one you want to spend your money on if you fancy quiet low-noise computing!

None. I didn’t receive any software with my shipment though the reason behind it is I got an international press sample. According to Acers homepage the full package will include copies of Norton AntiVirus, Adobe Reader, CyberLink PowerDVD and NTI CD Maker. The only thing that came with the notebook was a Bluetooth controlled custom painted mouse. It’s been coated with the trademark colours and logo of the Ferrari team making the mouse unique. It has two buttons and a scroll wheel with a bit of weight and a decent grip.

Acer is offering the standard six months warranty on the battery but only one year on the notebook itself. It’s not the best service the customer can get when compared to other companies’ two-year warranty. They do however have a hotline support on both hardware as well as software in normal opening hours which is a nice thing. They also supply you with an International Traveller’s Warranty making it safe for you to visit other countries. If you want added warranty you can sign up for Acer Advantage which will most likely take care of your daily needs.

Speaking of the general performance in office applications the Ferrari 4000 from Acer does reasonably well. Its scores are in the middle of the field and as such they’re neither astounding nor terrible. What could’ve produced some amazing results would be the inclusion of a speedier 7200 RPM hard disk. That could very well have put the notebook in front by far and would be more fitting with the rest of the design. After all a Ferrari is all about serious speed and as such a 7200 RPM hard disk would be a nice addition to its already great 3D performance. But it’s not lacking anyway and the overall office performance is quite decent.

When talking about battery life and the Ferrari 4000 you’ll quickly find out that it’s burning through the battery as a real Formula One race car burns through its fuel! The Ferrari 4000 from Acer is in desperate need of pit stops since it has a dire battery life. For those that are looking for a mobile notebook capable of long hours of unplugged activity they’ll have to look elsewhere.

Remark this is an Engineering Pre-production PR sample - so noiselever and battery time is probably better in the final version you can buy in the stores. Acer didn't tell us this fact before after the review

The 3D and game performance of the Acer Ferrari 4000 comes from its built-in ATi X700 graphics chip that has 128 MB of dedicated RAM. We’ve previously tested its baby brother X600 graphics chip and I’m curious as to what speeds we’ll get. After running the benchmarks and compiling the results there’s no doubt. The Acer Ferrari 4000 scores a devastating first place in all of our tests along with the ABook 3600TXi! These are by far the fastest notebooks we’ve tested to date in regards to 3D performance. Though there’s still some way to go before the notebook segment reaches the same performance level of their desktop counterparts it’s surely a step in the right direction. The gap in performance is no small one either but it’s in fact a hefty margin. If you’re looking for a good gaming notebook the Acer Ferrari 4000 will deliver quite the punch.





All tests results are available here.

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So how’s it like to drive a Ferrari? The first thing that comes to mind is the noise it makes. It’s not the thundering roar of a Formula One race car as one would hope for. Instead it’s an irritating fan that goes on and on without any real purpose for being that noisy! As I’ve mentioned before this is not a quiet notebook. On the other hand it scores a decent result in office applications and an impressive result in computer games.

Its real speed lies within the 3D area were it really shines through with good frame rates. Had it been configured with a 7200 RPM hard disk it might just as well be the one to beat in both 2D and 3D applications. But if you want to game you can do it on the Ferrari 4000. It also comes with a big monitor enabling you to turn the resolution up enjoying good graphics, lots of desktop space for various applications as well as big-screen DVD playback. And did I mention it’s a Ferrari? If you can live with the noise and want to play games while being a Ferrari fan you might have found your match.

+
It’s a Ferrari, good 3D performance
–
Very noisy, dreadful battery life, default warranty could be better

Remark this is an Engineering Pre-production PR sample - so noiselever and battery time is probably better in the final version you can buy in the stores. Acer didn't tell us this fact before after the review





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