Ferrari one @ £310

[capriboy1978]

I've been pointed in the direction of a major high street seller shifting acer ferrari notebooks at £305 plus £4 posting. There refurbs but only so far as customer returns (dsr) or damaged packing, the refurb is to cover there backs and to show they've been tested. Machines are as retail spec and have a full 12 month warranty.

Now with a 5gb dongle from 3 the total cost over 18 months is the same as a compaq 311....albeit with a £300 outlay up front. What do you guys think? Haven't come across many users of the ferrari and so far no other noteb books (although a fair few full sized laptops) with the same athlon x2 L310 cpu and ati HD3200 gfx.

I like the red lid and could live with a prancing horse on the front I suppose, specs as below:

Acer Ferrari One Full Specification
Processor
Clock speed 1.2 GHz
Processor type Athlon X2 L310
Processor manufacturer AMD
RAM
RAM installed 4096 MB
Max supported RAM 4 GB
Storage Hard Drive
Hard drive size 320 GB
Interfaces / Networking
USB 3
Ethernet Yes
Wireless networking Yes
Video Output
Graphics processor ATI Radeon HD 3200
Video outputs D-Sub, ATI XGP
Display
Display diagonal size 11.6 in.
Maximum resolution 1366x768 pixels
Audio
Built-in speakers Yes
Dimensions / Weight
Dimensions (W x H x D) 285x24x204mm
Weight 1.5 kg
Available colours Red
Battery
Battery technology Li-ion
Battery capacity 4400 mAh
Miscellaneous
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium

 

[Aod]

it's a fantastic spec for the money.

 

[Simon D]

That is a very good price

 

[darwin]

I have owned one since their initial release and paid full price for it. The build quality is generally quite good, however the keyboard does flex a little bit. Despite the Ferrari badging, it's no speed demon, but runs Windows 7 reasonably well and is fine for general computing tasks. In common with other AMD based laptops, the fan does come on quite often, so keep this in mind if it is likely to annoy you. The display is clear and bright, but does not compare favourably to a unibody macbook. I would have no hesitation in buying one at the price you have mentioned

 

[capriboy1978]

I have owned one since their initial release and paid full price for it. The build quality is generally quite good, however the keyboard does flex a little bit. Despite the Ferrari badging, it's no speed demon, but runs Windows 7 reasonably well and is fine for general computing tasks. In common with other AMD based laptops, the fan does come on quite often, so keep this in mind if it is likely to annoy you. The display is clear and bright, but does not compare favourably to a unibody macbook. I would have no hesitation in buying one at the price you have mentioned

brilliant, just the sort of info I've been after. It will be used primarily whilst I'm working nights so fan noise is a question? Subjectively how loud is it? Say in a bedroom with someone else asleep in it? Background noise is broadly similiar to an average to quiet pc.

Also how does it perform in reality? Reviews are one sided..... I'm thinking HD video, HD flash video, office and light gaming - say Fallout3 sort of thing with all the goodies turned down \ off.

thanks in advance, will likely be ordering tomorrow

 

[darwin]

The trouble with the fan is it switches on and off quite frequently. If it was always on (like a desktop PC) the noise probably wouldn't disturb someone who is sleeping. You might be able to control the fan manually through some third party software but I haven't tried as it's not an issue for me. I'm away on business at the moment, so unfortunately I can't check how it performs for the applications you mention. From memory, it handles standard youtube vids fine and office 2008 is no problem. The only games I have run on it so far is Braid, not exactly a demanding game. AMD are planning on releasing an external ATI GPU - the mobility 5870 - which plugs into the XGP port, so there is an upgrade path if you plan on doing some serious gaming. The best of luck with your purchase if you decide to go with it.

 

[capriboy1978]

cheers, I thought the xgp thing was dead in the water - if it isn't I fear it may well die a quick death which should mean mobility add on's are dirt cheap!

Waiting on some info re acer timeline 1810tz at £440 odd. Compared to the ferrari at full whack it blows it out of the water - better processor and 4500 gfx but at £140 over the recon ferrari it's too much for me.


edit

ordered one as stocks were flying out the door guess a new gfx card will have to wait, going to partner this with orange mobile BB from quidco with £80 cash back

Will post a review thread with pics if anyone is interested.

 

[capriboy1978]

Update-


Arrived today! Excellent delivery considering I didn't order/ pay for it till sat pm. Laptop is quite beautiful in the flesh except for the ferrari horse but i'll live with it. Machine is cosmetically perfect, not a single sign of use. All accesories sealed up as you would expect to find them. Box is quite stuffed and looks like it's been in a warehouse for donkeys.

Started her up, installed win7 on itself and onto the desktop in around 25mins and then....off. Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Turned it back on, back onto desktop and then.....off a few seconds later. Machine is warm but not hot however exhausted air is as hot as an xps gaming laptop. Phoned the company that shop uses for service, DJ Henry, and they are picking it up tomorrow - no charge obviously then sending me another. Only downside is turn around could be upto 10 days

Unless i'm missing something the ferrari has never been used and i've just got a duff one. We'll see!

 

[manveruppd]

Thanks to the OP for the heads-up! Was gonna buy an Asus or Samsung 10" jobbie, but when I noticed this thread I got one of these instead. Not 100% convinced I did the right thing as this baby will obviously suffer in terms of battery life (which is the one thing that matters most in a netbook) compared to the others, but I am getting a lot more performance for about the same price, and, as somebody who hangs out on these forums, that's a deal I just couldn't refuse.

I also got it today and it works fine. Fast, cool (not that I tried anything computationally intensive so that it would get hot, but it's cooler than older laptops I've had even when they were idling). Not a big fan of glossy screens in general (I was sitting next to a window and the reflection was ridiculous) but as glossy screens go this one was pretty good - not the brightest, not the warmest colours, but above average. The one thing I'm disliking is the touchpad, but I suppose I'll get used to it in time. It has no double-tap to right-click, which is annoying but not a dealbreaker. The two-finger scroll is abysmal (doesn't register, and when it does it zooms three screenfuls witht he merest flick) but the area-scroll more than makes up for that, especially with that twirly-scroll thingy. Keyboard is nice, full-sized keys mostly, nice clicking action though less travel than I would've liked. Left CTRL is a bit awkward to press with my little finger, and I kept hitting CAPSLOCK instead of left-shift, but I'll get used to it, was only using it for 4 hours today.

I haven't played any HD videos on it yet to stress its GPU a bit, but I'll report how it handles it when I do, and if different browsers make a difference.

Quick question to anyone that's got one of these: does it have bluetooth or not? I skimmed through a few reviews and some of them definitely mention Bluetooth, but others don't. I wonder if it's optional though, cause mine doesn't seem to have it: pressing the "Bluetooth"-marked Fn-key brings up a Bluetooth logo with a little X in its bottom right corner.

EDIT: I forgot to point out that mine seems completely unused as well. Everything was factory-sealed, and there was no damage on the packaging or anything like that.

 

[capriboy1978]

snip

glad your happy Speaking of bluetooth, I never checked on specs but the machine has a little blue * led next to the wlan which I presumed was bluetooth?

I liked the screen and full size keys too, touchpad was initially too small but in the 5 mins I used it I soon got the hang of it. Peeved that mine came broke!! Can't wait now for another one

Let us know how it handles hd video, I'm also curious as to how it might handle the odd older game (or xbox port) as the HD3200 gfx should be upto the job with all the goodies turned down.

 

[manveruppd]

OK, downloaded Flash 10.1 beta and played the 720p version of the Last Guardian trailer. It was mostly smooth, only the odd dropped frame for most of it and it was only noticeable because I was looking, except for one point where the wolf/cat/dragon-thingy is running through a corridor and there was NOTICEABLE stuttering (about a 2" segment). I reckon performance will improve with the release version of 10.1 for 720p to be smooth as butter, through 1080p will probably still be out of its reach.

EDIT: Only LEDs I have next to the wifi one is a little lightbulb-shaped one (which I assume is "on") and the battery/AC power one.

 

[Sneaky Peaky]

Sorry to hear that mate, I was very tempted by one of these but couldn't see them for this price, all seem to be up around the £400 mark.

Stopped by the local box shifters on the way home last night and ended up getting an Acer AS-1410 with a 1.3 Celeron, 3GB, 160GB etc for £275 open box customer return. Very nice little machine.

 

[capriboy1978]

cheers guys,

must have been the on light I was looking at, didn't have a good luck as was fuming at the damn thing not working. Was collected yesterday and down for delivery to DJHenry today who say they'll have another one out to me by early next week at the latest.

Looked last night and there were still a few available although that celly looks a good buy.

 

[Methanoid]

Looked last night and there were still a few available although that celly looks a good buy.

Would love to know where as it fits my requirements even tho I despise Ferrari.. I'll respray it in McLaren colours

 

[funkyphantom]

i could do with knowing too if you could possibly send it to my ntl email address in trust

 

[Methanoid]

Offer ended. Sorry

 

[capriboy1978]

back on again

spoke to company that is handling this for A****, they had mine back on wed last week. They approved a replacement but it won't come until this wed!! Bear in mind it was reported faulty a week mon and don't find this very impressive and will be pushing A**** for some goodwill.......especially now eB**** have got spanking new ones at £370 odd.

 

[manveruppd]

Still a good piece of kit for the price even without Bluetooth. I would only use it for a wireless mouse anyway, and tbh the touchpad is good enough for me so I doubt I'd bother forking out for one. What would I do with a mouse anyway? Play Quake Live on a laggy £5/hour wifi hotspot on the road somewhere?

I haven't had much time to play around with an Atom netbook to really be able to tell how much faster this one is, but I'm sure the Athlon X2 makes a respectable difference, so the question is whether you can live with 4hrs battery life compared to the 8+ hours some of the Samsung and Asus netbooks offer in exchange for a slower CPU.

 

[capriboy1978]

I'm just smarting over the delay!!!!

cpu power isn't really that much of a factor - the SU dual cores blow the x2 out of the water with comparable battery life but at a cost. The x2 for me makes the notebook more usuable in day to day use - less annoying hangs with two programs running and a zippier feel than even the dual core atom I tried.

On a plus note there's more stock available.

 

[manveruppd]

Have you gotten it yet, or are you still waiting?