The Ferrari Of Laptop Computers - Alas, It’s Not A Mac
by Charles W. Moore
I love Ferraris. Doesn’t everyone whose car consciousness transcends the appliance level? Ferraris are the ultimate exotic sports car. While there are a few worthy challengers like Lamborghini, Aston Martin, and perhaps the high-end Porsches and BMW Z-cars, nothing else really has the cachet of the Ferrari. Make mine crimson-red with a front-mounted V-12 engine.
I’ve also been an avid fan of Formula One motor racing for more than 40 years, since about the time Phil Hill became the first American F-1 world champion, driving a Ferrari. America’s only other World champion, Mario Andretti, also drove for Ferrari by times, but won his title in 1978 in a Lotus 79. Of course Ferrari-mounted Michael Shumacher of Germany has dominated F-1 racing through the first half-decade of the new century, before faltering a bit in the 2005 season.
For some reason, Formula One has never enjoyed a broad-base following in the US, or in Canada for that matter outside Quebec. NASCAR dominates, with the rival Champ Car and Indy Racing League series garnering most of the North American open wheel raising interest. However, outside North America, F-1 is big stuff -- the most popular motor racing series by far on a global scale. And Ferrari has been the most consistently prominent contender for more than a half-century. Other teams have come and gone, but only Ferrari has been racing every year since the late 1940s.
Which is one reason why a Taiwanese PC-maker Acer has scored a major coup by contracting with Ferrari to style and license the Ferrari name for a line of laptop computers.
“Being appointed as an official supplier to Ferrari represents their recognition of Acer’s quality, and cutting-edge technology.” says T.Y. Lay, President of International Operations Business Group, Acer Inc. ”We are most honored to play a role in this partnership between a world-class IT company and the world championship racing team of Formula One.”
“Technology is essential in helping us to reach our targets,” affirms Jean Todt, General Director of Ferrari’s Sports Management Division. ”We really appreciate that one of our official suppliers places a strong emphasis on the research and development of technologically advanced solutions. We firmly believe that innovation leads to a constant evolution.”
It is extremely rare for PC hardware to tempt me in the slightest, but the new Acer Ferrari 4000 laptop is so drop-dead gorgeous that I’m wishing Apple would license the Mac OS to the PC platform. Which, I guess, validates Steve Jobs’ decision not to.
Apple’s PowerBooks and iBooks are still mighty attractive machines, but the metal and white plastic motif, aesthetically pleasing as it is, has become just a wee bit monotonous. A bit of color -- even tastefully-done color accents, would be a refreshing change. And it’s not that Apple has no precedent for building colorful computers. There were of course the clamshell iBooks. Sometimes Macs have even been a bit to colorful, if you recall (you’re probably trying to forget!) the hideous “Flower Power” and “Blue Dalmatian” iMacs, which now seem like a sort of surreal bad dream.
A much longer shot than a colored or a color-accented Apple ‘Book would be a Formula one tie-in like the Acer-Ferrari relationship. I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen, but it would be cool. Apple already has iPod-related tie-ins with BMW and Mercedes-Benz (as well as several other automakers), and both firms are in the vanguard of Formula One racing as engine suppliers to the Williams and McLaren teams respectively. Next year, BMW will be launching its own F-1 racing team, and a BMW F-1 themed Apple PowerBook would be extremely cool. I wish Steve Jobs was interested in motor racing.
There is a workaround, sort of. You can check it out here:
http://www.colorwarepc.com/products/branding_services.aspx?id=30
But for now, if you want a ready-made “boy racer” laptop, the Acer Ferrari is it. Acer introduced its first Ferrari notebook in 2003 when it became an official supplier to the legendary Scuderia Ferrari Formula One team, which Acer supplies with with notebooks, PCs, servers and monitors.
And while the original Ferrari 3200 laptop was spectacular-looking, it was a bit of a plodder under the hood, so to speak, with a 1.8GHz Low-Power Mobile Athlon 64 processor and an old-school aspect ratio 1400 x 1050 display.
Not so the new Ferrari 4000, released in June,
In a column on “cool laptops” last week, TechNewsWorld’s Rob Enderle said:
”The top of the list and at a reasonable cost of US$2,000 is the Acer Ferrari 4000 laptop computer. With a graphite and red finish and performance that would rival most game laptops from specialty companies like Voodoo and AlienWare, but with an even more impressive brand in Ferrari, this is the ultimate affordable notebook.... a year ago I fell in love with the previous version of this product and used it to point out how dull the Apple Titanium product looked in comparison. However, in all honesty, the Apple remained a better product to use because the original Acer had a desktop processor, a square 15-inch screen, and could get hot enough to cause physical pain.“In the current version of this machine, the new AMD Turion processor solves most of these problems and, coupled with the high-end ATI mobile chipset and a 15.4-inch panoramic screen, this is now truly a notebook that kicks Apple’s butt. Granted, Apple is hobbled right now by an aging design, the departure of many key designers to OQO, and a slow migration to an Intel-based architecture. I’m expecting Apple to come back with a typical flourish next year, but until then, the Acer Ferrari notebook wins on cool.”
Others agree. Laptop Magazine gave the Ferrari 4000 their Hot Pick Award
Based on the new 64-bit technology, the Acer Ferrari 4000 sports a case made from strong and light carbon-fiber, with a soft-touch coating. A companion wireless Bluetooth optical mouse is included, and the AMD Turion 64 Mobile 2.0GHz CPU with 1MB L2 cache offers 64-bit power while and ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700 graphics card with 128MB DDR memory provides fast video and 3D acceleration displayed on a 15.4” widescreen 1680 x 1050 LCD.
Acer’s enhanced SignalUp technology boosts antenna signal strength and range, improving wireless connections and includes up-to-date CCX and Wi-Fi certifications. Also featured gigabit Ethernet, built-in Bluetooth, and infrared, a slot-loading DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive that writes up to 8.5 GB of data onto double-layer DVDs, an integrated 5-in-1 card reader that supports popular digital flash formats: Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro and xD-Picture Card.
The computer comes with 1GB (512MB installed in each of two memory slots) DDR333 SDRAM, user upgradeable up to 2GB with one 1GB memory card in each slot, a 100GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive, VGA, DVI-D (digital visual interface-digital) and S-video TV-out ports, microphone/line-in and stereo headphones/speakers/line-out with SPDIF support ports, FireWire, Four USB 2.0 ports, a Type II PC Card slot, 32-bit PC CardBus architecture, InviLink 802.11b/g wireless LAN, a V.92 56Kbps data/fax modem, an 88-key Acer FineTouch keyboard with five-degree curve, inverted T cursor layout, 2.5mm minimum key travel, international language support, a touchpad with four-way integrated scroll button, and a gloss-black optical mouse. The Ferrari 4000 weighs 6.3 lb.
For more information, visit:
http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/fr4000.htm