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

Pffft....

[canUbeleiveIT]

it seems that the only redeeming feature is the integrated, slot-loading DVD burner.

My cheapie Gateway has that. I'm just sayin'...

12" screen?

[Loconut1389]

The last 12" screen I had was my Acer 486 notebook, and it was grayscale. Have they brought those back? And for $1,800+? No way! You can get half decent notebooks with 15.4" WXGA's for $800 these days, dvd burner to boot.

Re:12" screen?

[SlashdotOgre]

You're missing the point, the people looking for an ultraportable notebook wouldn't even consider a model with a 15.4" screen, heck 13" is pushing it. While of course you could find a 15.4" model from Dell (or just about any other vendor) for under a grand, you can be gauranteed those things will weigh at least over 5lbs. The ultraportable notebook market targets people who carry a notebook with them all day and don't want something that will weigh them down or be cumbersome to open. What they want/need is something that you won't even notice you're carrying, that can be opened on a plane even when the jerk in front of you is fully reclined, something with enough battery to get you through your last sales call.

I agree that $1800 is way too much to spend, but the fact of the matter is all the modern models that are under 3lbs cost around that range. Personally, when I needed a ultraportable, I bought a 2.6lb Portege 2000 for about $200 from eBay last year, and while it's by no means a powerful machine by today's standards, it has more than enough power for most people's ultraportable needs. It's a P3 750 w/ 256MB RAM, and it runs Fedora Core 6 with Fluxbox amazingly fast. The places I use this laptop, I wouldn't even consider bringing my 14.1" D610, and anything larger would be out of the question. At the same time, if I was doing CAD or art, or many other types of work, there'd be no point for a laptop this small or slow, and those larger models become really attractive.

Re:12" screen?

[mr_matticus]

He indicated it was too much for his taste, but he also fairly indicated that this is the market's price range all around. You might think that a Wusthof is an overpriced knife and Farberware gets the job done fine. That clearly doesn't mean that Wusthof should lower its prices.

Who says you're getting less? You'd have to be extremely one-dimensional to make that claim. A 50% weight reduction might easily be worth more than a 15" screen. A loss of 3/4" in thickness could very well make sense for a slower CPU and fewer ports. If you don't need or want something, it doesn't have any value to you.

You don't care about looks, size, or weight. So this isn't for you. A business traveler probably doesn't care about having a desktop on his shoulder. So your machine isn't for him. It's presumptuous to claim you're getting "less" in an ultraportable than in a flimsily built standard laptop.

Re:12" screen?

[mr_matticus]

Well this Ferrari seems a bit lazy, but as to other ultraportables: yes.

It is no small feat (no pun intended) to reduce these machines. Whether it's a $2100 Vaio or an $1800 MacBook Air, every millimeter is a fight. Take the MacBook. It's one of the world's thinnest notebooks to begin with--barely over an inch thick overall. It is completely maximized for space as to "standard" notebook components.

Then look at the MBA. It is the same machine, only less than half the volume. It's 0.3" thinner at its very thickest, and averages about half an inch thick throughout. How do you do that? What makes it so that you can package a thinner machine? Keep in mind that most notebooks are 1.5" thick, and a notebook is already a complex miniaturization of a desktop system. The low-travel keyboard alone takes up about a third of the thickest part of the MBA and about a quarter of the thickness of a Vaio. How do you manage heat distribution when there is so little room for air circulation? How do you move heat away from components horizontally because radiating upward won't actually allow heat to escape? How do you further miniaturize an already-tiny CPU package (for the MBA, it involved new packaging--smaller and more expensive for the same thing)? How do you cram a whole motherboard into a space smaller than your typical PCI sound card? How do you make a battery small enough to fit in that height but last long enough (for the MBA, it's to remove all the bulky packaging and the space-wasting bay and put it directly in the case--it's not the first company to do so)?

Every millimeter is a fight. Removing the optical drive gets you maybe 1/3 of the way there for the MacBook Air. The rest of that makes a difference. There are plenty of people who would take the extra fifth of an inch back so they could keep the DVD drive. Sony makes a great Vaio for that, but it costs at least as much as the Air.

Is it really an extra $1000? The answer to that question is the same as the answer to "why is the very fastest CPU $500 more than the next best, and beats it by maybe 5%?" Because that's why they call it the bleeding edge. Early adopters pay the premium that makes things happen. The trickle-down effect takes over from there.

Re:12" screen?

[moosesocks]

Who says you're getting less? You'd have to be extremely one-dimensional to make that claim. A 50% weight reduction might easily be worth more than a 15" screen. A loss of 3/4" in thickness could very well make sense for a slower CPU and fewer ports. If you don't need or want something, it doesn't have any value to you.

Yes, and no. What if you don't have to make major compromises for the advantage of portability?

Apple's last generation of PowerBooks were essentially identical across screen sizes. The 12" model had virtually all of the important features of the 15" model, and the 17" didn't add all that much of value (apart from the big screen). It was no surprise, that the 12" model was one of the most popular and highly-regarded machines that Apple ever produced. Fast processor (for the time it was produced), a full range of ports (2x Usb, Firewire, Display, Ethernet, Modem, Audio), DVD Burner, decent graphics processor, and literally everything else you'd expect to find in a high-end notebook.

I own one such machine, and although the small screen does get annoying at times, the increased portability makes it 100% worthwhile. I've got a nice big screen at home, and at work that I can use if I need to, although a 12" screen is perfectly adequate for what you'd want to use a laptop for anyhow...... Serious photoshop work and marathon coding sessions do benefit from a big screen, although most tasks are perfectly fine on a smaller screen.

Not that this is an advertisement for Apple in any way..... Their recent machines have been somewhat of a letdown. The MacBook made numerous sacrifices in the name of affordability, and actually *increased* the size of the machine (albeit in the name of re-scaling the screen to a more practical aspect ratio). The MacBook Air, on the other end of the spectrum, made far too many sacrifices in the name of portability, and also costs a bloody fortune given how crippled it is.

Nobody needs a 15"+ 5+ pound laptop. The benefits of a small machine vastly outweigh those of a large one, and it's not all that difficult to build a full-featured machine into a small chassis without making too many compromises.

Re:12" screen?

[mr_matticus]

it's not all that difficult to build a full-featured machine into a small chassis without making too many compromises. And Apple did just that with the MacBook, just as Dell has done with some of its XPS line, Sony, HP, and Lenovo have several of those as well. You're welcome to buy one of those, but to suggest that it's adequate for everyone is simply not the case. A five-pound MacBook isn't what everyone wants.

None of them are ultraportables, though.

Again, you're presumptively mocking the situations where thin and light matters more than it does to you. Two and a half pounds doesn't sound like a lot to you, but it's a 45% weight reduction. A minimum 0.3" thickness reduction doesn't mean much to you, but it packs essentially the same machine into half the volume. These things aren't worth another $700 to you the same way one of those monstrous 17" Dell laptops with two hard drives and desktop CPUs aren't worth another $1000 to you. To speak about footprint is again to miss the critical point--all folios and briefcases will accommodate a notebook--the footprint is similar to a sheet of paper. It's thickness and weight that they compete on.

If you want something with a smaller, more PDA-like footprint, you're also shopping in the wrong segment, though plenty of companies offer that, too. The OQO products are excellent examples of subnotebooks(note their price: ~$1800; you get "even less" than a MacBook Air).

Ok, this line says it all

[jollyreaper]

The Ferrari series is the only one of Acer's laptop lines that favors design over price and performance. If I'm dropping $1800 on a laptop, I'm expecting design AND performance at the expense of affordability. For that kind of money, why not get a Mac? Sheesh! A fool and his money are some party.

Re:Ok, this line says it all

[68K]

'Some party'? The phrase you're looking for is 'a fool and his money are SOON PARTED.'

Re:Ok, this line says it all

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not dropping $1,800 on a laptop even if it performs oral sex whilst singing "Bohemian Rhapsody", balancing my checkbook, finding me a better job, changing diapers, and ensuring the tax thugs don't know about my dolphin smuggling.

I never got the ferrari

[jawtheshark]

Why in hell would one want to have a laptop that is branded after a car? I don't see the point... I wouldn't want to buy a Porsche, BMW, Mercedes or Audi branded laptop either.

Re:I never got the ferrari

[jo42]

...sheepishly puts away his Ferrari coffee cup, Ferrari mouse pad, Ferrari poker cards and Mercedes Benz umbrella... :-p

Re:I never got the ferrari

[OakLEE]

Or a better question, why would Ferrari license their trademark out to be slapped on something that any reasonable person could tell is a piece of crap just by looking at it. Seriously who needs a VGA, and a PS/2 port on their laptop nowadays? What year is this, 1998? And for $1860? Unless you really need the dedicated video to play games on a 12" screen, I don't see much reason to buy this one.

As for the case. Who needs carbon fiber on their laptop? Its use obviously didn't save any weight. The case weighs 4.4 lbs. You can also tell it uses cheap plastic that will discolor or crack easily. If I'm paying $1900 for a laptop, it better at least look and feel like a $1900 laptop (see a Lenovo Thinkpad or MacBook Pro). Ferrari has come a long way since the days when they were associated with flashy but brittle cars. I don't think it's in their best interest to rekindle that memory by putting their name on flashy yet brittle laptops.

Re:I never got the ferrari

[Loconut1389]

Lots of people like to dock at work and only use the (exceptionally small) screen on the road. Unless there's a dedicated all-in-one docking connector, VGA is important.

Re:I never got the ferrari

[FudRucker]

waiting for an Acer Volkswagen bug...

Re:I never got the ferrari

[vux984]

Seriously who needs a VGA, [...] port on their laptop nowadays?

Most people?

Connecting to large screens or projectors is a pretty common use for laptops.

Sure from a technical standpoint, I'd prefer DVI, with adapters to VGA, but VGA is probably more convenient. Most projectors I encounter are still VGA, as are a lot of budget screens, and the expensive ones at least support VGA too.

So for an ultra portable do I want the technically better DVI and the hassle of adapters everywhere I go... or just put up with the the lower quality of VGA but at least it works everywehre without carrying additional bits everywhere I go?

Tough call. I can see the argument for VGA.

Re:I never got the ferrari

[mdwh2]

But, but ... I'd rather have something that I can just plug straight in - that Just Works.

Re:I never got the ferrari

[OakLEE]

I should have been clearer in saying DVI over VGA but you made my point, so thank you.

My big gripe is that for $1900 bucks it should come with a DVI Input. Sure we're still in a VGA populated world now, but what about in 3-4 years when DVI projectors become the norm? You'll need an adapter then, and then your video output is going to look horribly inferior to native DVI outputs.

Incidentally, for $2k I would expect a laptop to remain usable for 3-4 years, which is why I'm using that time frame. If its not going to last that long then why not buy a cheaper laptop now and upgrade in two years?

Far from a disappointment

[cyofee]

The people buying it will get everything they wanted - a laptop you can edit text and sufr the internet on, with a Ferrari logo.

Re:Far from a disappointment

[McNally]

a laptop you can edit text and sufr the internet on

What a great transposition.. On some machines you "surf", but cut a few too many corners and you "sufr"..

Re: Lenovo X61 HAHAHAHA

[PFAK]

Troll.

The X61 has excellent reviews, infact I own one myself. Under "light" use (and I'm sure that Excel falls under light use), I can get 7 hours out of the battery with wireless enabled, if I'm watching XViD with VLC I can get about 4 hours out of the battery.

The hard disk is not slow at all, I'm running Windows XP and boot time is under a minute on the machine and is sufficient for most tasks.

Jeez...

[yourexhalekiss]

This laptop seems like a real loser. I had a different product with far better features way back this summer, for $600 less: the Dell XPS m1330. Slot-loading DVD burner, discrete graphics card, backlit LCD screen, etc. Dell even sells it w/ Linux. The only "bad" things about it in relation to this laptop is that it has a 13 inch screen instead of a 12", and it weighs about 3.8 pounds. (Still very light.)

Battery life on it is great, too: 4 hours of normal "note-taking" use (I'm in school) with the 6 cell battery, and a full six hours of regular use with the nine cell.

Frankly, I don't see why the slod-loading DVD burner is such a big deal: it's been done better and cheaper before.

VGA for projectors, and it's not a PS/2 Port

[langelgjm]

Seriously who needs a VGA, and a PS/2 port on their laptop nowadays?

Lots of people need VGA out to hook up to projectors. Also, that's not a PS/2 port. Judging by the pin configuration, I'm guessing it's an S-Video out or something, for attaching to TVs, etc.

Ferrari 4000

[KingJ]

I own a Ferrari 4000 laptop, it's two years old and I still use it on a daily basis. I didn't buy it for it's branding, and I would rather not have the branding however at the time it was one of the few laptops with a real graphics card in it (no intel rubbish!). I want to be able to play games while not at home, anywhere. It's a very durable laptop that has survived many drops and the slot-load CD drive is an excellent idea - I don't know why more laptops don't have them. The only thing i've had to replace during it's intensive life is the hard drive, not exactly Acer's fault.

Next time I buy a laptop, i'm looking at another Ferrari or a machine with a real graphics card at an affordable price. So far the only contender i've seen is Dell's Vostro, but I have a deep dislike of Dell due to previous experiences. I don't expect to be looking for another laptop for a while though while this one is still going strong.

Re:at least it has a real video card unlike the $1

[TeknoHog]

Yeah, I can't imagine why anyone would like integrated Intel graphics that have full opensource drivers available in your friendly neighbourhood distro.

Acers decline

[fartrader]

I blame it on Schumacher's retirement.

Re:at least it has a real video card unlike the $1

[mr_matticus]

Yeah, because that's exactly what you want on an ultraportable: a hot, battery-sucking video card so you can game on a 10-13" screen, packed in with a low-clocked, low voltage CPU. An ultraportable is not a desktop replacement. If you need a CAD workstation on the go, you're shopping in the wrong market segment. Who on earth modded this insightful?

For a group of people supposedly more "in the know" about technology than most, you seem to miss the point at a frightening frequency. Your 4GB, 2.6GHz dual-core CPU laptop with a 300GB hard drive and a 17" screen might be exactly what you want: maximum raw power. It's not what everyone else wants, and it's not what the lower 80% of computer users would ever come close to needing. Some people would rather spend that money on other things: size, aesthetics, convenience, true portability. Ultraportables under an inch thick are slim enough to fit in soft folios that are half the thickness of a laptop bag. Thin has its place. Specs are not king.

PS- the MacBook is $1100, not $1500, and it's also not a desktop replacement.

Re:at least it has a real video card unlike the $1

[Jeremy Erwin]

PS 2.0?

Excuse me, but on MacOSX, we use openGL and fragment shaders. None of this DirectX stuff, thankyouverymuch.

Re:This shouldn't be at all surprising

[Jeremy Erwin]

Really, not even backlit, that sounds like a really expensive paperweight to me.

It's not backlit by an LED, but there probably is a florescent bulb behind the screen

Re:at least it has a real video card unlike the $1

[EdIII]

They REALLY do miss your point at frightening frequencies. I NEED an ultraportable. Let me rephrase that. I fucking NEEEEED an ultraportable real fucking bad. Excuse my language :)

I have had PDA phones for years, since it combined the 2 things I need most. 1) A Cell Phone, 2) An organizer and limited ability to run code and surf web pages.

I recently canceled my data plan since I have been 4 different PDA models, and I have come to the inescapable conclusion that they all SUCK. The interface is not what I need, I cannot run everything I need from Windows Mobile 5, or 6. Windows Mobile is buggy as hell. Always has been. A PDA Phone just does not get the job done, and it has not gotten any better in 4 years.

So your point is dead on. I need an ultraportable that has just enough specs to get my job done, while being able to fit into an pocket. I don't need to run Crysis on it, or even it have it replace all the abilities of my high end workstations. I just need to be able to have a full OS, like Windows XP Professional. That will allow me to run the exact same programs that I have developed on my workstations. I need this for work, not play. If I wanted to play remotely, I would use my PSP or DS.

I don't need all the "raw power". I just need the ability to manage my networks, run some web pages, access some databases remotely. That's it.

Re: Lenovo X61 HAHAHAHA

[SHaFT7]

the harddrive makes a huge difference in battery life. i had an HP laptop a few years back, and i went from 4200rpm to 7200rpm. it was super fast, but my battery life went from 2-2.25hrs to 45min.

Re:at least it has a real video card unlike the $1

[MsGeek]

I don't need all the "raw power". I just need the ability to manage my networks, run some web pages, access some databases remotely. That's it.

This looks like a job for Eee.

Horrible design

[SpaghettiPattern]

I remain on the save side saying 90% Ferraris are designed gorgeously.

Apart from the fact the Acer does not seem to convince on performance and sense, why in the name of god would Ferrari put its name on this ugly piece of junk?

Re: Lenovo X61 HAHAHAHA

[Anpheus]

Power consumption on modern hard drives has dropped over time, so if you switched the hard drive recently, you might be getting a benefit from improved efficiency or power management. On the other hand, if you had opted for the same hard disk when you bought your laptop, you might have noticed a more significant difference.

Re:at least it has a real video card unlike the $1

[mdwh2]

That includes a game like Morrowind, which even ran poorly on a discrete Geforce 5600 (which could only manage to run it at 800x600 with FPS a lowly 15-30 range).

A 5600? How old is that? How does that suggest a much more recent 8400 wouldn't be able to run it well?

I shudder to think how low you have to reduce details/draw distance and resolution to run Morrowind on your GMA 950 or the GPUs in those laptops.

Not at all, I run at max settings at 1024x768, though I miss a few features like reflections (probably due to older shader model, which isn't an issue on newer cards). And I know how well it works on a faster card, as I have an 8600GT in my desktop. But yes, I'd rather have something better than the GMA for playing games - which is why the NVIDIA laptops are preferred over the Mac.

If a game cannot achieve a minimum of 60fps at 1024x768 then it is thoroughly unplayable unless you like blocky slideshows.

For an FPS or other game where fast action is always needed, yes, but not for other types of games. Unless you think watching a TV is like a blocky slideshow.

Might be a bit too big...

[Rob Simpson]

I don't have any pockets big enough to carry the eee, anyway. The Samsung Q1, while quite long, might be narrow enough to fit in a jacket pocket. There are some upcoming ones that might work, too... here is a list.

Re:This shouldn't be at all surprising

[johny42]

Have you ever seen an Acer fanboy?