GE's Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi Review
I know I don't have too many posts, but I think another owner on here could only be a good thing so, here I am
I ordered the laptop from PC Connection for $2,199.99. There is no tax there, and they are running a free shipping promotion until the end of this month. I also picked up a free (~$70 value) laptop bag from them under another promotion that runs until the 30th, but I wont get that for a few weeks as it is on backorder.
The packaging is very sturdy, consisting of several layers of cardboard and a few air packets thrown in there for cushioning. Once you open the final box (there are around 3) you will be greeted by the Ferrari suspended in two foam holders and another cardboard box which contains the accessories. In the box are:
Ferrari Bluetooth Mouse
2x AA rechargeable batteries
Mouse USB charge cable
AC adapter
AC power cord
Li-Ion battery
Software disks (including XP and Acer recovery disks)
Several manuals
Phone cord
Ferrari cleaning cloth
-I think that is all
Installation is stupid simple:
Place the battery into the laptop
Connect the AC adapter to the AC power cord
Plug AC adapter into wall
Plug power cord into Ferrari
Turn on laptop
The initial boot took quite awhile, I'd say over a minute until I was greeted by the XP setup screen. Once I reached that point, the wizard was snappy and quick, as has been everything since I turned it on. XP is very responsive and everything works efficiently and exactly.
Screen The default brightness setting was at ~50%, and, expecting it to be at 100%, I was initially disappointed, as my Dell 2005FPW LCD was about 2x brighter, probably more. The text is slightly blurry, but that is easily rectifed by activating ClearType, and enhanced further by installing Microsoft's ClearType Tuning software, included among many other useful apps in their XP Power Toys suite. The text is now much more crisp than the 2005FPW, and at 100% I'd have to give a slight edge in whiteness to the Acer's screen. It's gorgeous, but not yet calibrated.
The monitor has one dead pixel about 3/4 of the way up, 1/4 to the left, but the WSXGA resolution is at such a high ppi that it is invisible unless you are scanning the monitor a few inches away from the screen.
There is slight backlight bleeding along the edges but it is insignificant. I did not notice any leakage around the sides but my observation of that was not critical.
The monitor does not have a glossy screen. It is matte, and looks the same as my old 17" LCD (obviously not in quality or brightness, but texture). There are no sparklies, at least none more than my other screens (Dell 2005FPW and Cornea MP704).
Build The Ferrari is extremely robust.
Keyboard, Touchpad Everything feels extremely responsive. The keys are taut and bounce back quickly, the touchpad is comfortable and fairly large, and the touchpad buttons are precise, not loud, and have a good feel to them. Surrounding the keyboard is a nice rubbery surface that has a very quality feel to it, which keeps your hands from flying around but doesn't attract dust or particles. Obviously they can still settle on the surface but they are wiped off easily. I removed the ATi and AMD Turion stickers, but left the Designed for XP and x64 plate on. The former were just regular stickers, and the ATi one was slightly crooked. The latter is a thick metallic sticker with a brushed aluminum look, so I left it on. When removing stickers, the rubberized surface is very durable and I was able to easily remove the stickers without damaging the surface with a small tool from a travel manicure kit. You can use fingernails on the ATi sticker but the AMD sticker is more robust. Use a tool on that one. The four programmable buttons in the top left are my only complaint. They are a regular platic material and are slightly hard to push. They seem well below the quality of the rest of the unit.
Case The sides of the case are run-of-the-mill plastic, but that is not an issue since that area is just so small and is not really an impact point. The top of the case is highly glossy and has a perfect, continuous carbon fiber weave through it. The hinges tend to give a little bit to weight if they are at a <20 degree angle to the case, but movement of the screen is easy and very solid, with very little flex. If you press on the back the screen does pulse in the top roght hand corner and you can flex the screen physically (though there is no discoloration) in the lower middle area. This is only with undue pressure though; the screen should be perfectly fine in a case or backback with books. I'd be a little concerned about stepping on it though, or dropping it from a significant height. If you are familiar with fiberglass or carbon fiber car products, treat the laptop the same way: the cf will shatter if it's hit or damaged and will fling shards EVERYWHERE.
Hot Spots The two wrist placement areas become slightly hot during normal use, but no more than the keypad of the average house phone when talking for an extended period of time. The fan blowing out of the side blows hot air when the system is under a heavy load, but as I type this the air is cool. One problem hot spot that I found is the touchpad: the edges of it where the silver plastic is becomes hot when the system is under a heavy load (I noticed this when playing HL2 demo). However, the heat is not unbearable, but it is uncomfortable to use. The remainder of the laptop remains at ambient tempurature, including the LCD, which is very cool on all sides.
Noise The laptop is very quiet. It is at about the same noise level as my idle DP 1.8 G5 tower, and the louder fans have not kicked on, at least as far as I have noticed. The CD drive is noisy when loading and unloading, but regular operation while the CD is installed is smooth, with only a slight vibration. The hard drive is almost silent, and I'm often surprised to see the HDD light flashing as I'm sitting in near-complete silence.
Mouse It took awhile to get the mouse recognized by the laptop, and when it was done the mouse was very erratic and often shut off inexplicably, screwing me over horribly in the middle of the HL2 demo. However, once I removed the charging cable and gave the mouse some fresh batteries, it performs like a champ, though there is some lag when getting the mouse going after it has been sitting for a few seconds. The build is all plastic, I wish they had coated it in the same rubber they did the keyboard surround. There is no on/off switch, so I used another member's suggestion here to just flip one of the batteries around when the mouse is not in use.
Bluetooth and WiFi Bluetooth is very straight-forward, press the button on the front and run the wizard to set BT stuff up. I have not had a chance to use the WiFi yet. BT range easily goes across my room, so I'll give safe distance around 10-15 feet.
Gaming The HL2 demo runs smoothly and clearly, to say the least. As in D3 on the G5, opening doors and entering new areas provides a slight lag but only for a few seconds, then the comp quickly recovers into excellent framerates and picture quality. I have not run any benchmarks or played any other games.
Software The F4k ships with a variety of software including:
XP Pro
AMD Proc drivers
Acer GridVista
Acer eManager
Launch Manager
Acer System
Cyberlink PowerDVD
NTI Backup NOW!
NTI CD & DVD Maker 7
Norton AntiVirus is included with a free 90-day definitions trial.
Welp, that's my review so far. I'll update this as I learn new things and do some more stuff, but until then, this is all ya get
Pictures follow.
Pictures
The top lid
The front of the laptop
The keyboard
The right-hand side
The left-hand side
The screen
The mouse
The laptop near my two monitors. The one it is directly in front of is a square 17" Cornea MP704 LCD, the one to the left is a 20.1" widescreen Dell 2005FPW.
The laptop near my G5
Any questions, hit me up here or on AIM as "goandeatsomestuf" (yea, only 1 "f")
-GE
Edit 1: I saw on the net that you can rub out some dead pixels...and mine rubbed out very quickly So my screen is now perfect
I know I don't have too many posts, but I think another owner on here could only be a good thing so, here I am
I ordered the laptop from PC Connection for $2,199.99. There is no tax there, and they are running a free shipping promotion until the end of this month. I also picked up a free (~$70 value) laptop bag from them under another promotion that runs until the 30th, but I wont get that for a few weeks as it is on backorder.
The packaging is very sturdy, consisting of several layers of cardboard and a few air packets thrown in there for cushioning. Once you open the final box (there are around 3) you will be greeted by the Ferrari suspended in two foam holders and another cardboard box which contains the accessories. In the box are:
Ferrari Bluetooth Mouse
2x AA rechargeable batteries
Mouse USB charge cable
AC adapter
AC power cord
Li-Ion battery
Software disks (including XP and Acer recovery disks)
Several manuals
Phone cord
Ferrari cleaning cloth
-I think that is all
Installation is stupid simple:
Place the battery into the laptop
Connect the AC adapter to the AC power cord
Plug AC adapter into wall
Plug power cord into Ferrari
Turn on laptop
The initial boot took quite awhile, I'd say over a minute until I was greeted by the XP setup screen. Once I reached that point, the wizard was snappy and quick, as has been everything since I turned it on. XP is very responsive and everything works efficiently and exactly.
Screen The default brightness setting was at ~50%, and, expecting it to be at 100%, I was initially disappointed, as my Dell 2005FPW LCD was about 2x brighter, probably more. The text is slightly blurry, but that is easily rectifed by activating ClearType, and enhanced further by installing Microsoft's ClearType Tuning software, included among many other useful apps in their XP Power Toys suite. The text is now much more crisp than the 2005FPW, and at 100% I'd have to give a slight edge in whiteness to the Acer's screen. It's gorgeous, but not yet calibrated.
The monitor has one dead pixel about 3/4 of the way up, 1/4 to the left, but the WSXGA resolution is at such a high ppi that it is invisible unless you are scanning the monitor a few inches away from the screen.
There is slight backlight bleeding along the edges but it is insignificant. I did not notice any leakage around the sides but my observation of that was not critical.
The monitor does not have a glossy screen. It is matte, and looks the same as my old 17" LCD (obviously not in quality or brightness, but texture). There are no sparklies, at least none more than my other screens (Dell 2005FPW and Cornea MP704).
Build The Ferrari is extremely robust.
Keyboard, Touchpad Everything feels extremely responsive. The keys are taut and bounce back quickly, the touchpad is comfortable and fairly large, and the touchpad buttons are precise, not loud, and have a good feel to them. Surrounding the keyboard is a nice rubbery surface that has a very quality feel to it, which keeps your hands from flying around but doesn't attract dust or particles. Obviously they can still settle on the surface but they are wiped off easily. I removed the ATi and AMD Turion stickers, but left the Designed for XP and x64 plate on. The former were just regular stickers, and the ATi one was slightly crooked. The latter is a thick metallic sticker with a brushed aluminum look, so I left it on. When removing stickers, the rubberized surface is very durable and I was able to easily remove the stickers without damaging the surface with a small tool from a travel manicure kit. You can use fingernails on the ATi sticker but the AMD sticker is more robust. Use a tool on that one. The four programmable buttons in the top left are my only complaint. They are a regular platic material and are slightly hard to push. They seem well below the quality of the rest of the unit.
Case The sides of the case are run-of-the-mill plastic, but that is not an issue since that area is just so small and is not really an impact point. The top of the case is highly glossy and has a perfect, continuous carbon fiber weave through it. The hinges tend to give a little bit to weight if they are at a <20 degree angle to the case, but movement of the screen is easy and very solid, with very little flex. If you press on the back the screen does pulse in the top roght hand corner and you can flex the screen physically (though there is no discoloration) in the lower middle area. This is only with undue pressure though; the screen should be perfectly fine in a case or backback with books. I'd be a little concerned about stepping on it though, or dropping it from a significant height. If you are familiar with fiberglass or carbon fiber car products, treat the laptop the same way: the cf will shatter if it's hit or damaged and will fling shards EVERYWHERE.
Hot Spots The two wrist placement areas become slightly hot during normal use, but no more than the keypad of the average house phone when talking for an extended period of time. The fan blowing out of the side blows hot air when the system is under a heavy load, but as I type this the air is cool. One problem hot spot that I found is the touchpad: the edges of it where the silver plastic is becomes hot when the system is under a heavy load (I noticed this when playing HL2 demo). However, the heat is not unbearable, but it is uncomfortable to use. The remainder of the laptop remains at ambient tempurature, including the LCD, which is very cool on all sides.
Noise The laptop is very quiet. It is at about the same noise level as my idle DP 1.8 G5 tower, and the louder fans have not kicked on, at least as far as I have noticed. The CD drive is noisy when loading and unloading, but regular operation while the CD is installed is smooth, with only a slight vibration. The hard drive is almost silent, and I'm often surprised to see the HDD light flashing as I'm sitting in near-complete silence.
Mouse It took awhile to get the mouse recognized by the laptop, and when it was done the mouse was very erratic and often shut off inexplicably, screwing me over horribly in the middle of the HL2 demo. However, once I removed the charging cable and gave the mouse some fresh batteries, it performs like a champ, though there is some lag when getting the mouse going after it has been sitting for a few seconds. The build is all plastic, I wish they had coated it in the same rubber they did the keyboard surround. There is no on/off switch, so I used another member's suggestion here to just flip one of the batteries around when the mouse is not in use.
Bluetooth and WiFi Bluetooth is very straight-forward, press the button on the front and run the wizard to set BT stuff up. I have not had a chance to use the WiFi yet. BT range easily goes across my room, so I'll give safe distance around 10-15 feet.
Gaming The HL2 demo runs smoothly and clearly, to say the least. As in D3 on the G5, opening doors and entering new areas provides a slight lag but only for a few seconds, then the comp quickly recovers into excellent framerates and picture quality. I have not run any benchmarks or played any other games.
Software The F4k ships with a variety of software including:
XP Pro
AMD Proc drivers
Acer GridVista
Acer eManager
Launch Manager
Acer System
Cyberlink PowerDVD
NTI Backup NOW!
NTI CD & DVD Maker 7
Norton AntiVirus is included with a free 90-day definitions trial.
Welp, that's my review so far. I'll update this as I learn new things and do some more stuff, but until then, this is all ya get
Pictures follow.Pictures
The top lid
The front of the laptop
The keyboard
The right-hand side
The left-hand side
The screen
The mouse
The laptop near my two monitors. The one it is directly in front of is a square 17" Cornea MP704 LCD, the one to the left is a 20.1" widescreen Dell 2005FPW.
The laptop near my G5
Any questions, hit me up here or on AIM as "goandeatsomestuf" (yea, only 1 "f")
-GE
Edit 1: I saw on the net that you can rub out some dead pixels...and mine rubbed out very quickly
So my screen is now perfect
