Another Acer Ferrari 3200 Review - Page 2

just an identifier, you can just hit enter if you don't want a label.

What about the heat? Is it still acceptable when playing Far Cry for 2 hours? I don't like to burn my hands on a notebook or bake an egg on it.
What about the screen, is it really good, or just acceptable? What about viewing angles etc. ? Does the DVD-rewriter writes + and - ? I'm wondering what the noticable difference is between a plastic and aluminum, the Pos. and neg. What about the L2 cache of 512 kb, is 1 mb much better? Last question: are the cpu. etc. of the 3200 upgradable?

When I converted my drive to Ntfs it said that my cluster size was 32k how can I change that to 4k. I guess the bigger the cluster size the slower the drive.

Ha Ha. That's a good use for a notebook.

Hi,

What is the Acer Ferrari case made from? Carbon Fiber, Aluminum, Titanium, or plastic? Also, does it come with the 64BIT WinXP?

It doesn't come with Win XP 64 bit. The case is made of plastic and a little bit carbon fiber above the keybord.

It uses the low-power Mobile Athlon 64 2800+ prosessor, so heat and battery life shouldn't be any problem. From soyboy's review:
"As with the heat. I've been running benchmarks nonstop for the past hour and the left palm rest gets a little bit warm, but definitely not HOT. I don't mind the slight heat because it can act as a hand warmer when it's cold in the house."

Shinzon then replied:
"The left palm rest gets warm in fact of the HDD, which is located there."

Regarding battery life this is what soyboy says:
"I got around 2 hrs 50 mins while surfing the internet, running aim, running some .avi files, and hooked up to a wired network (not wireless). I believe I may get more life from the battery as I still need to condition it. I got close to 2 hrs running a DVD. But like I said, I think after conditioning the battery, I will get more life. When on battery, the screen automatically dims, the processor downclocks to 800mhz, and the video card down clocks to 105/105."

From Adam@PCTorque's review:
"One of the better SXGA+ LCD I've seen. It's bright and average in angle viewing."

soyboy:
"The screen...I've read some people not liking the viewing angles on this machine. But I personally think the screen is totally and absolutely acceptable. In fact, I think the screen is better than the one on my old Sony notebook. I don't find it hard at all to find the sweet spot. Some people may dislike the native resolution of the screen, but the native resolution does not bother me at all."

soyboy:
"I love the DVD-Burner. I have two desktops at home which one only burns + DVD media and one only burns - DVD media. I definitely like the fact this notebook can burn both formats of DVD."

Adam@PCTorque:
"The slot load CD drive is one of my fav features as I've always preferred the slot over the tray."

Several reviews have shown that the L2 cache size on Athlon 64 dosen't impact preformance in any major way, so 1MB isn't much better. I'm not 100%sure, but I think the CPU of the 3200 will be upgradable like most AMD processor-based laptops.

Its a DVD-RAM drive so it can also burn DVD-RAM discs as well

Tnx for the answers, I hope this Ferrari will go a bit down in price in the next few weeks, I think this red machine will be mine then.

I'm wondering if there are any gradient problems with this LCD like some other notebooks with SXGA+ LCDs.

I'm wondering if there are any gradient problems with this LCD like some other notebooks with SXGA+ LCDs.

(note the grey background of notebook forums in that pic... the top is darker compared to the bottom)



its not really a big deal, you dont notice when doing regular stuff. its only noticable when you are looking at a predointly 1 color background do u see it. the bottom tends to be slightly lighter than the top... while most of it goes away when u get it at the correct viewing angle "sweet spot" its still there just a teeny bit...

i had a ferrari 3000 and my cl56 (which is also 15" SXGA+) and the two exhibited the same qualities.. i also had the mitac8335 and it did the same thing..

if you look at other threads everyone who has these 15" SXGA lappies are perfectly happy with it and just comment that the vertical viewing angles are somewhat limited...

only people who needed a presentation type laptop were turned away by it

Oh... thats some good stuff there, thanks for the info. I guess it doesnt look too bad. I'm definitely gonna try and get my hands on this one.

has anybody here used an A64 laptop from gamepc.com? they seem kind of expensive but they do have the elusive (for A64 notebooks) M11.

Yes dude I want one too!!! looks kick ass

can you elaborate more on this?

anyone else can comment on this? thanks a lot

I recently purchased one and love it ...

Can anyone tell me if the slot drive can handle mini CD-Rs and mini DVDs ????

The drive comes up as a "Mat****a UJ-825S". The closest answer I was able to find is that some of the new Apple laptops are rumored to use this drive and that they're able to read and operate the mini CD-R fomat.

Since there's no tray ... can't risk sticking a mini CD-R in and have it get stuck !!!

Any input is GREATLY appreciated !!!