Acer Ferrari 1100, One Large Disappointment

PC Magazine was finally able to get ahold of an Acer Ferrari 1100 to review, and the results are less than stellar. With complaints about the 12-inch screen that isn't even LED-back-lit, a large clunky design, and underwhelming performance, it seems that the only redeeming feature is the integrated, slot-loading DVD burner. "The Acer Ferrari 1100 would be more attractive if its price ($1,860) wasn't higher than that of the more aesthetically pleasing Apple MacBook Air ($1,799) or the ASUS U6S ($1,699). For those who passed on the first-edition Ferrari ultraportable because it lacked an optical drive, the 1100 now has one built in. But in a world consumed by miniaturization, it will have to shave off a bit of weight and improve its performance scores for it to compete with thoroughbreds like the Sony SZ791N, the Dell XPS M1330, and the Lenovo X61."

Comments

This shouldn't be at all surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

...after all, when did Acer built a decent product? They only spew out el cheapo crap that can barely pass the warranty without passing a couple of times through their repairmen.

Lenovo X61 HAHAHAHA

[DarkOx]

The X61 is a total crap. Its am embarassment to the otherwise good name Thinkpad.
The harddisk it ships with is insanely slow, the batter life is awful(45min under normal excel use) unless you make the thing bigger and heavy with the exteneded model. The plasic feels and looks cheap and on top of everything else the restore software for it, which you have to pay extra for does not work.

Favors design?

[DwarfGoanna]

I'm going to burn some karma here to point out that this thing appears to have been designed BY A FUCKING RETARD. I've seen more tasteful case mods at the fucking flea market.

Macbook Air's 4200rpm HDD

[nick_davison]

The Air is lumbered with a 4200rpm drive.

If you're a fan of having your files emailed to you when the drive gets around to it, that's awesome. For everyone else, pretty much the only option is to upgrade to the solid state drive... at which point the price tag is massively higher.

Granted, the Acer only has a 5400rpm drive rather than an infinitely preferable 7200... and it certainly doesn't compete with the much faster solid state drive... but it's still a big step over the 4200.

Either way, the Air also comes with 2GB vs. 4GB of ram (still more than adequate right now but Moore's Law (yes, I know it's a semi-misquote) means you'll lament it well within the life of the machine).

Then again, to be fair, their only argument in favor of the Air over the Acer was that it was prettier and $60 cheaper.

Re:Ok, this line says it all

[hairyfeet]

You seem to be forgetting one thing-The Apple will still have quite a high resale value in five years,whereas the Acer will be lucky if you get $150 off of eBay,that is if it still works.If I was spending that kind of cash on a laptop I would want the Apple,as I could get a good chunk of my money back by selling it when it came time to trade up.