Registered User
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 12 I just got my Ferrari 3200 and wanted to post a few remarks.
First of all, someone mentioned something about whether the carbon fiber strip was true carbon fiber. It is but it is pasted on to a plastic peace and is only about 3/4 mm thick so it is not really functional. I have been using a Titanium Powerbook before this, so it is my main comparison.
Design and Build:
I absolutely love the desing of this laptop. Everything is where it should be in my opinion and I have not found any problems with usability. It is much more portable than I had expected. Strictly by feel alone, I think it is just as easy to carry and transport as the powerbook. In fact, I like it better because the widescreen makes the powerbook overly wide IMO. The unit is very solid, especially if you are used to Dells of the past two years. I have seen $3000 Dells that have loose battery packs and flex everywhere you touch them. The Ferrari is very well assembled and feels high quality. The only slightly questionable aspect is that the dvd drive has a strip of plastic right below the slot area that is not very solid. However, this is not enough to bother me.
Keyboard: Again, I am used to the powerbook's keyboard and I happen to hate that keyboard, mainly because of the layout and the key size. The cursor keys and funcion keys were too small and not very usable. I am happy to say that the cursor keys on the Ferrari are much more to my liking and have been good for gaming. The overall layout is extremely good fo me and I have not made any mistake input as a result of the keyboard.
Touchpad and mouse:
The included Ferrari mini optical mouse is one of the best features of the laptop (not really, but its awesome). I love the size and functionality of the mouse and its great that I didnt have to go buy a mouse when I got the comp. The touchpad takes a little getting used to. It seems to be a little less smooth than I would like at first but it has gotten better and is perfectly acceptable. The cursor button in between the mouse buttons is a welcome feature and it does its job.
Screen:
Again, I am used to the Powerbook screen which is a widescreen that is pretty nice and has decent viewing angles. I prefer the Ferraris screen and think it is easier to see outside. No dead pixels either. I agree with the other people saying the screen is nothing to be complaining about. I love how many steps there are on the dimmer.(Good for increasing batt. life)
Performance:
I have not done any benchmarks yet but I can tell you this thing is fast. My desktop is a 2.5 ghz P4 with 1 gig of ram and a 64 mb Geforce card. I find this laptop to be faster. Multitasking is great. I can play Ut2004 in a window while talking on Instant messenger and on the web. I was pretty impressed by that. As far as the 4200 rpm HD affecting performance: lets put it this way, I cant imagine how fast this would be with a 7200 rpm HD. UT2004 levels load slightly slower than my desktop but gameplay difference is negligible. Also, im sure startup would be slightly faster with a new HD.
Wireless:
I use the built in wireless to connect to my home 802.11B router and it works flawlessly and took about 30 seconds to set up. Signal strength is adequite. My house is bad for wireless transmission. Its great to have the button to turn off wireless right on the front and it also stays lit to tell you its on.
DVD Watching:
I watched Romeo Must Die which has a lot of fast paced action and did not notice any ghosting or anything like that. The playback quality was good and definately better than those portable dedicated DVD players with the little 7 inch screens. Also, the speakers are lightyears better than the powerbooks which I had trouble hearing.
Battery life: So far I have managed to get a maximum of close to 3 hours with web browsing, IM, and other light work. I watched Lord of the Rings for 2:08 minutes before the low battery warning came on. I am pretty pleased with the battery life so far seeing as the new powerbooks get about an 1 and a half at most.
Everyone wondering about hard drive formats:
The HD comes with two partitions, one holding the Acer restore data and the other is for your storage. Both are formatted as Fat32. It is very easy to convert to NTFS from the command promt. You can find out how by googling for "Convert FAT32 to NTFS". I would only convert the storage partition as the acer data partition might need to be in FAT32.
Overall, I love this laptop and reccomend it to anyone who doesnt mind battery life that is an hour or so less than most Pentium-M Centrino solutions. I am happy I spent my $1971 with cash discount from PC Torque on this machine.
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 12 I just got my Ferrari 3200 and wanted to post a few remarks.
First of all, someone mentioned something about whether the carbon fiber strip was true carbon fiber. It is but it is pasted on to a plastic peace and is only about 3/4 mm thick so it is not really functional. I have been using a Titanium Powerbook before this, so it is my main comparison.
Design and Build:
I absolutely love the desing of this laptop. Everything is where it should be in my opinion and I have not found any problems with usability. It is much more portable than I had expected. Strictly by feel alone, I think it is just as easy to carry and transport as the powerbook. In fact, I like it better because the widescreen makes the powerbook overly wide IMO. The unit is very solid, especially if you are used to Dells of the past two years. I have seen $3000 Dells that have loose battery packs and flex everywhere you touch them. The Ferrari is very well assembled and feels high quality. The only slightly questionable aspect is that the dvd drive has a strip of plastic right below the slot area that is not very solid. However, this is not enough to bother me.
Keyboard: Again, I am used to the powerbook's keyboard and I happen to hate that keyboard, mainly because of the layout and the key size. The cursor keys and funcion keys were too small and not very usable. I am happy to say that the cursor keys on the Ferrari are much more to my liking and have been good for gaming. The overall layout is extremely good fo me and I have not made any mistake input as a result of the keyboard.
Touchpad and mouse:
The included Ferrari mini optical mouse is one of the best features of the laptop (not really, but its awesome). I love the size and functionality of the mouse and its great that I didnt have to go buy a mouse when I got the comp. The touchpad takes a little getting used to. It seems to be a little less smooth than I would like at first but it has gotten better and is perfectly acceptable. The cursor button in between the mouse buttons is a welcome feature and it does its job.
Screen:
Again, I am used to the Powerbook screen which is a widescreen that is pretty nice and has decent viewing angles. I prefer the Ferraris screen and think it is easier to see outside. No dead pixels either. I agree with the other people saying the screen is nothing to be complaining about. I love how many steps there are on the dimmer.(Good for increasing batt. life)
Performance:
I have not done any benchmarks yet but I can tell you this thing is fast. My desktop is a 2.5 ghz P4 with 1 gig of ram and a 64 mb Geforce card. I find this laptop to be faster. Multitasking is great. I can play Ut2004 in a window while talking on Instant messenger and on the web. I was pretty impressed by that. As far as the 4200 rpm HD affecting performance: lets put it this way, I cant imagine how fast this would be with a 7200 rpm HD. UT2004 levels load slightly slower than my desktop but gameplay difference is negligible. Also, im sure startup would be slightly faster with a new HD.
Wireless:
I use the built in wireless to connect to my home 802.11B router and it works flawlessly and took about 30 seconds to set up. Signal strength is adequite. My house is bad for wireless transmission. Its great to have the button to turn off wireless right on the front and it also stays lit to tell you its on.
DVD Watching:
I watched Romeo Must Die which has a lot of fast paced action and did not notice any ghosting or anything like that. The playback quality was good and definately better than those portable dedicated DVD players with the little 7 inch screens. Also, the speakers are lightyears better than the powerbooks which I had trouble hearing.
Battery life: So far I have managed to get a maximum of close to 3 hours with web browsing, IM, and other light work. I watched Lord of the Rings for 2:08 minutes before the low battery warning came on. I am pretty pleased with the battery life so far seeing as the new powerbooks get about an 1 and a half at most.
Everyone wondering about hard drive formats:
The HD comes with two partitions, one holding the Acer restore data and the other is for your storage. Both are formatted as Fat32. It is very easy to convert to NTFS from the command promt. You can find out how by googling for "Convert FAT32 to NTFS". I would only convert the storage partition as the acer data partition might need to be in FAT32.
Overall, I love this laptop and reccomend it to anyone who doesnt mind battery life that is an hour or so less than most Pentium-M Centrino solutions. I am happy I spent my $1971 with cash discount from PC Torque on this machine.
