X-bit labs

Acer Ferrari 1005WTMi Notebook Review

Category: Mobile

by Alexander Britvin

[ 06/12/2007 | 03:06 PM ]

We would like to introduce to you another member of the Ferrari racing team from Acer. This time it is going to be an ultra-compact solution based on AMD Turion 64 X2 TL60 processor running at 2.0GHz that proved very functional, very fast, and... very expensive. Read more in our review!

Table of contents:

• Package, Accessories
  
• Design and Ergonomics
  
• Configuration
  
• Test Methods
  
• Performance
  
• Conclusion
  

Fast cars caught the spotlight at the middle of the last century and the ranks of lovers of high speed and racing adrenaline have been getting more populated ever since.

Formula 1 is not unrivalled among other kinds of racing, yet the army of Formula 1 followers is perhaps the biggest army in the world, even though it has been reporting desertions after the 7-times world champion Michael Schumacher left. The elite of car manufacturers, collaborating with the leaders in the area of electronics, are creating sports cars with unique speed and aerodynamic characteristics that excite the imagination of millions of fans worldwide.

The computer industry is not aloof to the racing spirit, but computer users get their thrill from the race for performance while PC manufacturers are racing for the users’ money, making their products attractive by means of chrome and carbon materials and eye-catching colors.

We well remember the beginnings of the Acer Ferrari and ASUS Lamborghini notebook series: they were virtually copies of top-end notebooks from other series with an addition of appropriate racing insignia and characteristic colors. They were gaining more individuality, eventually. The 4000 series from Acer Ferrari was instantly recognizable (for details see our article called Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi Notebook Review), and the last-year 5000 and 1000 models, running on dual-cylinder engines (the ASUS Lamborghini notebooks had two execution cores from the start, but didn’t support 64-bit extensions), had their own unique characters, too. The 5000 series notebooks were also ragingly fast in terms of graphics performance. The 1000 series just cannot accommodate a discrete graphics core due to its modest 12.1” form-factor.

So, this laptop remains speedy only when it comes to pure computing, but it is rather a midget racing car in its graphics performance and mass/dimensions parameters (302x221x34.5 millimeters and 1.6kg with a 3-cell battery)

The Ferrari team doesn’t meet any competition from Automobili Lamborghini here due to a lack of ASUS models in the ultra-portable sector. Thus, the Acer Ferrari 1005WTMi we are about to test-drive today is unrivalled as yet, and Ferrari is again the first to start out, this time in the ultra-compact sector. The Acer Ferrari 1005WTMi will be opposed by the Dell Inspiron XPS M1210 that has the same form-factor and a similar configuration (for details see our article called DELL Inspiron XPS M1210 Notebook Review).