Processor & chipset
Low-power Mobile AMD Athlon™ 64 processor 3000+ / 2 GHz
VIA ProSavage™ K8T800 chipset
Type L2 Cache
Installed Size 512 KB
The 3000+ is excellent and its only going to get better as 64bit technologies take off, I have a AMD 2800xp destop and my Ferrari genuinly is considerable faster. There isn't another AMD64 that use the "low power thin and light technology" on the market in the UK so apart from a lower spec ferrari this is the lightest and longest battery life A64 money can buy. I'm not sure how the speed stepping works but i dont think its all that, if i look at sys properties it is only ever 3 speeds, its nearly always 1.60ghz sometimes 2.0ghz when stressed and 800mhz is the only other step but i hardly ever see it at that even when doing nothing.
Memory
1024 MB of DDR333 2700 memory, upgradeable to 2 GB using dual soDIMM modules
It came with 512mb but since im going to be using it for work, training and gaming I thought it best to upgrade straight away, which rlsupplies did for a very reasonable price, £59 plus trade in the stock 512mb. I've yet to stress the memory with any tools such as vmware or virtual pc but a little advise to anyone before you order, they can take 400 3200 which I found out after ordering it
.
HardDrive
80GB ATA-100 4200rpm
Unfortunaley in my opinion this is the Ferrari 3400's only disappointment. It comes from acer partitioned into 2 x 35gb FAT32 drives and i believe theres a 10gb recover partion hidden some where. Basically im going to flatten it, put XP Pro with SP2 on and format the disks in NTFS. Just prepare yourself for slower access times and longer loading screens but there not that bad im not going to upgrade it yet put it that way.
LCD
15" SXGA+ colour TFT LCD with 1400 x 1050 pixel resolution (200 nit), 16.7 million colours
Now im going to be a little controversial here and say yes the screen is excellent and the colours are vivid etc but viewing angles are not brillant at all if you arent directly infront of its not very good. For 99% of games like half life2 etc they look fantastic but put on a fast paced sports game like FIFA football 2005 and you'll find the responce times alike all laptops aren't incredible causing slight motion blur, but otherwise its an excellent screen.
Battery
Technology Lithium Ion
Installed Qty 1
Average Run Time 3 hour(s) 4.5 hours charge-in-use
Now im not calling Acer or the very helpful Ferrari expert SNORRE a liar especially as hes given me some good advice and is a fountain of knowledge but and i hope he reads this so he can pass some advise on, I have followed the first step of his battery guide as i have only had it two days this has meant I used it the first day with out putting the battery in then charged it whilst it was off last night for approximatley 7 hours (I was asleep) then today i left it on battery and it lasted about 2:40 doing pretty much nothing i did launch half life 2 for approx 3mins just to show some one but thats it. so hope fully second charge will hold a better charge.
Storage
Slot-load DVD-Super Multi drive:
Read: 4X DVD-R, 4X DVD-RW, 4X DVD+R, 4X DVD+RW, 8X DVD-ROM, 2X DVD-RAM, 24X CD-ROM
Write: 2.4X DVD+R, 2.4X DVD+RW, 4X DVD-R, 2X DVD-RW, 2X DVD-RAM, 16X CD-R, 8X CD-RW
5-in-1 card reader, supporting MultiMediaCard (MMC), Secure Digital (SD), SmartMedia™, Memory Stick and Memory Stick PRO
DVD drive is superb and cool that its a slot-load but noisy. Card reader as expected its a card reader.
Audio
Audio system with built-in speakers
MS-Sound compatible
Built-in microphone
Realtek AC97 Codec ALC202A
Superb sound and quite loud too but full wack and it will start to distort some sounds.
Wireless
Wireless LAN: Acer InviLink™ IEEE 802.11g, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED, supporting Acer SignalUp wireless technology
Absolutley awsome range I dont have wireless at home but some one on my housing estate does have a wireless adsl router unsecured foolishly
and im connected to there broadband with a strong signal keeping in mind the closest it could be is 30 yards away thats pretty good.
Graphics
ATI® Mobility Radeon® 9700 with dedicated 128MB of video memory
MPEG-2/DVD hardware assisted capability
ATI® POWERPLAY™ 4.0 feature
Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 support
DualView™ support
External display resolution up to 2048 x 1536, 75Hz, via non-interlaced CRT display
Simultaneous external display at 1400 x 1050 pixel resolution, 60 Hz
SUPERB, I know its now standard in top spec laptops now but in my desktop I have the legendary 9500pro and I cant see any difference infact i'd go as far as to say its actually better than my desktop. Seriously
Medal of honor Pacific assult - Every setting on high plus top res 1450 x 1050
Need 4 Speed Underground 2 - Full screen AA and all settings on high
Half life 2 - 1280 x 1024 every setting on high 4xAA
and so on all entirely smooth
3D Marks are listed in my sig below and i could of got even better if i wasn't
scared.
Design
Width33 cm Depth 27.2 cm Height 3.1 cm Weight 3 kg
Hand painted lid
Lets be honest forget the stigma of it possibly being a bit cheesey cause of the ferrari logo, It is the best looking laptop i have ever seen and the opinion is the same with eveyone in my office untill you see one in the flesh dont diss it, Its thin fairly light and now dockable. plus a cool mini optical ferrari mouse.
I will post a pick if any one really wants one but the only external change to the 3200 is a docking port a 5 -1 card reader and a 3400 badge. The 5degree keyboard is very nice.
Cost and Supplier
http://www.rlsupplies.co.uk/products...ct.asp?id=3784
£1359 plus upgrade to a 1gb and a 3yr acidental damage warrenty comes to £1502 inc vat which for the UK is the cheapest i've found any where but the US will probably be laughing at that.
Conclusion
I've been very hard and honest on the ferrari pointing out all its positives and negatives but All in all a 9.5/10 laptop fantastic for gaming and working let down only by a slow hard disk, viewing angles and possibly battery life will edit if this changes. I would definatley buy it again and again, There isn't another AMD64 that use the "low power thin and light technology" on the market so if you want a portable AMD64 this is your only choice and face it, its by no means a bad choice. Buy one it makes sense
If anyone wants any more benchmarks point me in the direction of the software and something to compare it with.
Help
One and only one problem PLEASE HELP Snorre when the laptop goes into Hibernation (not standby) when its woken up the graphics go all funny and it has to be rebooted.
Low-power Mobile AMD Athlon™ 64 processor 3000+ / 2 GHz
VIA ProSavage™ K8T800 chipset
Type L2 Cache
Installed Size 512 KB
The 3000+ is excellent and its only going to get better as 64bit technologies take off, I have a AMD 2800xp destop and my Ferrari genuinly is considerable faster. There isn't another AMD64 that use the "low power thin and light technology" on the market in the UK so apart from a lower spec ferrari this is the lightest and longest battery life A64 money can buy. I'm not sure how the speed stepping works but i dont think its all that, if i look at sys properties it is only ever 3 speeds, its nearly always 1.60ghz sometimes 2.0ghz when stressed and 800mhz is the only other step but i hardly ever see it at that even when doing nothing.
Memory
1024 MB of DDR333 2700 memory, upgradeable to 2 GB using dual soDIMM modules
It came with 512mb but since im going to be using it for work, training and gaming I thought it best to upgrade straight away, which rlsupplies did for a very reasonable price, £59 plus trade in the stock 512mb. I've yet to stress the memory with any tools such as vmware or virtual pc but a little advise to anyone before you order, they can take 400 3200 which I found out after ordering it
.HardDrive
80GB ATA-100 4200rpm
Unfortunaley in my opinion this is the Ferrari 3400's only disappointment. It comes from acer partitioned into 2 x 35gb FAT32 drives and i believe theres a 10gb recover partion hidden some where. Basically im going to flatten it, put XP Pro with SP2 on and format the disks in NTFS. Just prepare yourself for slower access times and longer loading screens but there not that bad im not going to upgrade it yet put it that way.
LCD
15" SXGA+ colour TFT LCD with 1400 x 1050 pixel resolution (200 nit), 16.7 million colours
Now im going to be a little controversial here and say yes the screen is excellent and the colours are vivid etc but viewing angles are not brillant at all if you arent directly infront of its not very good. For 99% of games like half life2 etc they look fantastic but put on a fast paced sports game like FIFA football 2005 and you'll find the responce times alike all laptops aren't incredible causing slight motion blur, but otherwise its an excellent screen.
Battery
Technology Lithium Ion
Installed Qty 1
Average Run Time 3 hour(s) 4.5 hours charge-in-use
Now im not calling Acer or the very helpful Ferrari expert SNORRE a liar especially as hes given me some good advice and is a fountain of knowledge but and i hope he reads this so he can pass some advise on, I have followed the first step of his battery guide as i have only had it two days this has meant I used it the first day with out putting the battery in then charged it whilst it was off last night for approximatley 7 hours (I was asleep) then today i left it on battery and it lasted about 2:40 doing pretty much nothing i did launch half life 2 for approx 3mins just to show some one but thats it. so hope fully second charge will hold a better charge.
Storage
Slot-load DVD-Super Multi drive:
Read: 4X DVD-R, 4X DVD-RW, 4X DVD+R, 4X DVD+RW, 8X DVD-ROM, 2X DVD-RAM, 24X CD-ROM
Write: 2.4X DVD+R, 2.4X DVD+RW, 4X DVD-R, 2X DVD-RW, 2X DVD-RAM, 16X CD-R, 8X CD-RW
5-in-1 card reader, supporting MultiMediaCard (MMC), Secure Digital (SD), SmartMedia™, Memory Stick and Memory Stick PRO
DVD drive is superb and cool that its a slot-load but noisy. Card reader as expected its a card reader.
Audio
Audio system with built-in speakers
MS-Sound compatible
Built-in microphone
Realtek AC97 Codec ALC202A
Superb sound and quite loud too but full wack and it will start to distort some sounds.
Wireless
Wireless LAN: Acer InviLink™ IEEE 802.11g, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED, supporting Acer SignalUp wireless technology
Absolutley awsome range I dont have wireless at home but some one on my housing estate does have a wireless adsl router unsecured foolishly
and im connected to there broadband with a strong signal keeping in mind the closest it could be is 30 yards away thats pretty good.Graphics
ATI® Mobility Radeon® 9700 with dedicated 128MB of video memory
MPEG-2/DVD hardware assisted capability
ATI® POWERPLAY™ 4.0 feature
Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 support
DualView™ support
External display resolution up to 2048 x 1536, 75Hz, via non-interlaced CRT display
Simultaneous external display at 1400 x 1050 pixel resolution, 60 Hz
SUPERB, I know its now standard in top spec laptops now but in my desktop I have the legendary 9500pro and I cant see any difference infact i'd go as far as to say its actually better than my desktop. Seriously
Medal of honor Pacific assult - Every setting on high plus top res 1450 x 1050
Need 4 Speed Underground 2 - Full screen AA and all settings on high
Half life 2 - 1280 x 1024 every setting on high 4xAA
and so on all entirely smooth
3D Marks are listed in my sig below and i could of got even better if i wasn't
scared.
Design
Width33 cm Depth 27.2 cm Height 3.1 cm Weight 3 kg
Hand painted lid
Lets be honest forget the stigma of it possibly being a bit cheesey cause of the ferrari logo, It is the best looking laptop i have ever seen and the opinion is the same with eveyone in my office untill you see one in the flesh dont diss it, Its thin fairly light and now dockable. plus a cool mini optical ferrari mouse.
I will post a pick if any one really wants one but the only external change to the 3200 is a docking port a 5 -1 card reader and a 3400 badge. The 5degree keyboard is very nice.
Cost and Supplier
http://www.rlsupplies.co.uk/products...ct.asp?id=3784
£1359 plus upgrade to a 1gb and a 3yr acidental damage warrenty comes to £1502 inc vat which for the UK is the cheapest i've found any where but the US will probably be laughing at that.
Conclusion
I've been very hard and honest on the ferrari pointing out all its positives and negatives but All in all a 9.5/10 laptop fantastic for gaming and working let down only by a slow hard disk, viewing angles and possibly battery life will edit if this changes. I would definatley buy it again and again, There isn't another AMD64 that use the "low power thin and light technology" on the market so if you want a portable AMD64 this is your only choice and face it, its by no means a bad choice. Buy one it makes sense
If anyone wants any more benchmarks point me in the direction of the software and something to compare it with.
Help
One and only one problem PLEASE HELP Snorre when the laptop goes into Hibernation (not standby) when its woken up the graphics go all funny and it has to be rebooted.
