Acer Ferrari 4000 4005WLMi Notebook Reviewed by Barry Little - September 21, 2005 Manufacturer: Acer, Inc. Model: LX.FR406.035 Few names personify the word legend in the world of Formula One racing and exotic dream cars as Ferrari. When Acer, one of the world’s top five PC manufacturers, joined forces with AMD and Scuderia Ferrari to create the Ferrari 3000 notebook back in October 2003, they had an immediate winner on their hands.
Now a little about Acer from their website: About Acer Acer ranks among the world's top five branded PC vendors, designing and marketing easy, dependable IT solutions that empower people to reach their goals and enhance their lives. In 2000, Acer spun-off its manufacturing operation to focus on globally marketing its brand-name products: desktop and mobile PCs, servers and storage, displays, peripherals, and e-business solutions for business, government, education, and home users.
Series Processor Operating system processor 3000+ XP Home Edition preloaded Display System memory HDD Optical devices Dimensions & weight Multi drive 3.014kg (6.64 lbs) Slot-load DVDSuper Multi doublelayer drive 363 (W) x 267.5 (D) x30.5/34.3 (H) mm 2.86kg (6.3Ibs.
The first thing that greets you when you open the box is this Quick-Start fold-out Let's get this thing unpacked. The only thing missing is that new car smell. All of the software and accessories are in this box. Here's a closer look at the Quick-Start fold out. As you can see, the Acer Ferrari Notebook has evolved quite a bit over the years. Let's see just how much... Packaging FedEx delivered the notebook in a large box filled with Styrofoam packing peanuts.
places two PIFAs (Planar Inverted F-Antennas) inside the top of the Ferrari 4000’s LCD display, creating a perfect omni-directional signal sphere for enhanced wireless network reception even in low-reception areas, as indicated by the SignalUp logo on the red styling strip running along the upper edge of the LCD display.
Ferrari 4000’s integrated Broadcom NetLink 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet adapter and an RJ-11 port for the built-in Agere Systems AC’97 56K ITU V.92 modem; a USB 2.0 port; a 4-pin IEEE 1394 “Micro” Firewire port; and one PC Card Slot that accepts any standard Type II PCMCIA card. The latch on the left releases the DVD burner; the one on the right, the battery. Here's the rear view of the Ferrari 4000 with the battery installed.
1w Li-ion (Lithium Ion) Battery Pack snaps in the rear of the notebook, takes 2.5 hours to fully charge, and holds that charge for an average of 3.5 hours under normal use. Carefully turn the notebook over, and you’ll find the latches that release the battery and Matshita optical drive, as well as compartments containing the Wireless LAN, hard drive, and memory. There’s also another set of ventilation slots. Here's a head-on view of the Ferrari 4000. Not only is it slim, but at 6.
native resolution of 1680 x 1050; Acer’s 89-key ergonomic FineTouch™ keyboard, and a generous-sized touch pad framed in aluminum-colored plastic with matching mouse buttons and a neat scroll pad button in the center.
Here's the Ferrari crest again. A close look at Acer's 89-key FineTouch ergonomic keyboard. As you might expect, it may take a brief adjustment period to get used to, and you'll either love it or hate it (I love it). Ferrari World's wallpaper applet automatically puts a cool, new Ferrari photograph and calendar directly on your desktop every month. The Acer Ferrari 4000 runs as fast and as good as it looks.
program of your choice. All of the Easy-launch buttons can be reconfigured to your liking with Acer’s Launch Manager software. As with most notebook keyboards, engaging the key or pressing the + keys changes the keys to on the right-hand side of the keyboard to a numeric keypad for numeric data entry.
....like so. Now let's reboot and check out the Ferrari 4000's BIOS. The Acer Ferrari 4000 uses the ever-popular and widely-used Phoenix BIOS. This is the Information Screen which gives a peek at what's under the Ferrari 4000's impressive hood. This is the Main Screen where you can configure basic system settings: Quiet Boot determines whether you see the cool Ferrari splash screen on boot-up or the more pedestrian textbased BIOS and system startup info.
This enables or disables the password protection on the hard drive for the aforementioned D2D utility which is run from a special hidden partition on the hard drive, or Acer Recovery through Acer eManager. You'll probably want to leave this enabled. brightens the display when the laptop is plugged into a power outlet. Here, you can select the boot order the Ferrari 4000's available bootable devices.
Pressing the third Easy-launch button (with the "e" on it) brings up Acer's eManager Menu, which groups the Ferrari 4000's most commonly used Acer utilities together for quick and easy access. Let's take a look at the first option—Acer ePresentation. Acer ePresentation provides a fast and simple way of setting the Ferrari's screen resolution when it's connected to a projector, without having to dig through the Display Settings applet under Windows Control panel.
Pay attention to this warning if you don't have the AC adapter plugged in before starting eRecovery—it will save you a lot of grief. The first option lets you create backups and change the utility's default password. Note the options here. Acer eRecovery requires a separate FAT32 partition on the local hard drive to create or delete a backup snapshot image of the laptop's current configuration under Windows.
The Acer Ferrari 4000 ships with four CDs; a three-disc recovery CD set consisting of a bootable System CD that loads Symantec’s Ghost, and two Recovery CDs containing the actual Ghost image of the factory OS, driver and utility install. In spite the Acer OEM Windows XP Start Here booklet, there is no CD with the actual Windows XP OS included—an unfortunate but growing trend followed by many OEM PC and Notebook manufacturers these days to rein in costs. Here's the guide.
Acer eRecovery—although the Ferrari 4000 ships with a set of recovery CDs, eRecovery lets you make an additional set quickly and easily, allowing you to bring your Ferrari 4000 back to life after a crash-n-burn. Backups can be performed to the hard drive, or to CDs and DVDs. One thing I’ve learned the hard way a long time ago, is that you can never have too many backups. You can also run eRecover outside of Windows, by pressing during system boot-up.
Now let's check out Boot Options. The most commonly changed settings normally performed through the BIOS on system boot-up can quickly and easily be made here. The changes will be in effect the next time you reboot the Ferrari 4000. Next, we have Security Settings. Again, this option saves you from having to go into the BIOS to set and modify system passwords and configuring any smart cards you may be using for security. Finally, System Information gives you a look under the Ferrari 4000's hood.
Battery Life Designing a notebook has always been a delicate balancing act between size, weight, performance, heat, and battery life. It’s nearly impossible to maximize one area without making compromises in others to achieve that balance. While the Acer Ferrari 4000 is no exception, it does strike a reasonable balance between power and power usage for a laptop chocked with hi-performance components, while running fairly cool, even under full load.
To see how long it really takes a battery to discharge and recharge, I used the Battery Eater 05 Utility. All power saving options and hibernation were disabled during the test. The notebook’s default power saving scheme Portable/Laptop was used to insure that the processor would automatically scale its speed accordingly to the workload imposed by Battery Eater Pro, as it would if the Ferrari 4000 were used while on battery power under normal circumstances. The “Classic” test was used.
Unique ID Chemistry Temperature Designed Capacity Full Charged Capacity Designed Voltage Current Voltage Manufacture Date Cycles Count Cells count Force charge support Force discharge support CPU BEmarks GPU BEmarks RAM BEmarks HDD BEmarks Pi calculations HDD read\write Fames Rendered Resolution FullScreen Mode Total time 10696SANYOZF01 Lithium Ion Thermal Control Not Present 71040mWh 67828mWh 0V 0V 0/0/0 0 0 Not Supported Not Supported Benchmark results 0 0 0 0 Work Done 81880 Cycles 12107 Mb 641333 Frame
Well, the results speak for themselves. It took 84 minutes for the battery to be fully depleted by Battery Eater 05. It also took 3 hours, 27 minutes and 51 seconds for the battery to fully charge again.
1.20, was used for the test. The default settings for the benchmark were used, and the video driver control panel settings were left at the default “Application Preference” for all quality settings. Page 22 of 22 Barry’s Rigs ‘n Reviews http://www.barrys-rigs-n-reviews.com All trademarks used are properties of their respective owners. Copyright © 2003-2007 by Barry Little. All Rights Reserved.
Page 23 of 23 Barry’s Rigs ‘n Reviews http://www.barrys-rigs-n-reviews.com All trademarks used are properties of their respective owners. Copyright © 2003-2007 by Barry Little. All Rights Reserved.
No surprises here for the Mobility Radeon X700 with its 128MB of RAM and the Turion 64 ML-37 processor, as the results are pretty much what you’d expect them to be. DOOM3 id Software’s remake of the classic first-person shooter that started it all, powered by a spectacular new graphics engine with incredible lighting effects and nearphotorealistic visuals. The retail version of the game was used and patched to Version 1.3.
Two separate maps were used for the benchmark. The first is Demo_1, which is the default DOOM3 benchmark, and consists of the Mars City Underground level right after the demonic invasion, where you confront a number of Imps and UAC personnel turned into Zombies. The second map, VIAVGA_D3, is a custom-recorded DOOM3 benchmark created by VIA Arena and is available for download. This visually intensive benchmark is based on one of VIA Arena’s premier custom-made multiplayer maps for DOOM3.
As you can see from the chart, the 800x600 resolution gives the best overall frame rates. At 1024x728 the game is still playable, but you can expect some hitching and slowdowns with multiple enemies on the screen.
The highest resolution supported for Half-Life 2 on the Acer Ferrari 4000, is 1400x1050—a resolution high enough to get by with, without using antialiasing and with Trilinear filtering enabled—if it wasn’t for some very distracting driver-version related visual anomalies related to the HUD (Heads Up Display) and some seriously sluggish frame rates, particularly during the larger firefights with Gordon Freeman and the Resistance against the Combine troops.
higher resolutions and antialiasing settings, it also would have added to the cost of an already expensive notebook that was designed for general all-around use and not specifically for gaming. But look at the bright side: there are a number of laptops in the Ferrari 4000’s class that can barely run games like DOOM3 and Half-Life 2—if at all.
File Compression File Encryption File Decompression Image Processing Virus Scanning Grammar Check File Decryption Audio Conversion Web Page Rendering WMV Video Compression DivX Video Compression Physics Calculation and 3D Graphics Memory - 64 lines 3.1 MB/s 30.8 MB/s 24.3 MB/s 12.3 MPixels/s 1532.7 MB/s 3.1 KB/s 61.1 MB/s 2613.5 KB/s 4.6 Pages/s 45.8 FPS 49.7 FPS 174.0 FPS 1612.1 FPS Again, the results are what you would expect for a laptop of this type.
Notebook fires on all cylinders and hits all of these attributes on the mark, with few exceptions. Right-click on the GridVista icon in the System Tray and select Options to change the utility's settings. Right-clicking the icon and selecting Grid Display for each available monitor will bring up a list of grid configuration options. GridVista will place three buttons in the title bar of all applications that can be dragged and dropped into a grid.
performance, she preferred the keyboard of her IBM ThinkPad over the Ferrari 4000 keyboard. The touch pad on the Ferrari 4000 was the most responsive I’ve ever used, but for doing any work for an extended period of time, a mouse is still a better choice— which is why Acer included the Bluetooth wireless mouse with the Ferrari 4000.
The Acer Ferrari 4000's Realtek AC'97 Audio Control panel thankfully lacks the gaudy-looking skins used by other OEMs, using the default Windows theme instead. Here you can select headphones or the built-in 16-bit stereo speakers. A variety of environment effects are available to choose from—though Generic is the bestsounding one of them all, particularly when listening to music, playing games or watching your favorite DVD. The Graphic Equalizer can also be used to tweak the sound to your liking.
While this issue wouldn’t be a problem for the most part, people who use software to create and manage websites and publish their sites to web servers that have casesensitive operating systems should avoid using NTI’s Backup NOW! to backup their work. There’s no good reason for any backup program to change the case on files. An Acer-branded version of NTI CD & DVD-Maker Gold, Version 7 is included with the Ferrari 4000. With it, you can burn Data CDs, DVDs, and Mixed Mode CDs... ...
Because there's only one optical drive and burner in the Acer Ferrari 4000, you'll have to copy the source disc to a temporary file on the hard drive, then onto a blank CD or DVD disc afterwards. This isn't such a bad or inconvenient thing, as it's usually a more reliable method of duplicating CD and DVD discs, due to the wide range of quality in media and other factors that can often prevent a successful drive-to-drive copy. NTI CD & DVD-Maker can also burn and play audio discs, and has a Wave Editor.
unreasonable to expect. There are a number of extended warranty options available, but if you want the extra peace of mind, you’ll have to pay for it. The Acer Ferrari 4000 ’s styling has been toned down quite a bit from the previous 3000-series notebooks (although some folks will still find it a bit too flashy for their tastes), but its performance, functionality and quality hasn’t—in fact they’ve gotten better.
Final Score: Summary: Highs: Acer takes their series of Scuderia Ferrari-sponsored laptops to the next level with the Ferrari 4000 4005WLMi Notebook. Powered by AMD's Turion 64 ML-37 mobile processor, ATI's Mobility RADEON X700 PCI Express graphics processor and RADEON XPRESS 200P Motherboard chipset, with 1GB RAM, 100GB hard drive, a gorgeous 15.
Acer Ferrari 4000 4005WLMi Notebook Manufactured by: Acer, Inc. Distributed by: Various retailers Specifications: Operating system - Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition - Microsoft Windows XP Professional Platform - Processor: AMD Turion 64 ML-37 processor (2.0 GHz) - Chipset: ATI RADEON XPRESS 200P Memory - 1 GB of DDR333 memory, upgradeable to 2 GB using two soDIMM modules Display - 15.4" WSXGA+ TFT LCD, 1680 x 1050 resolution - 16.
Communication - Modem: 56K ITU V.92 with PTT approval; - Wake-on-Ring ready - LAN: gigabit Ethernet; Wake-on-LAN ready - WLAN: integrated Acer InviLink™ 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ solution; supporting Acer SignalUp wireless technology - WPAN: integrated Bluetooth Size and weight - 363 (W) x 265.7 (D) x 30.5/34.3 (H) mm - (14.29 x 10.46 x 1.2/1.36 inches) - 2.86 kg (6.3 lbs.) Power - ACPI 1.0b power management standard supports Standby and Hibernation power-saving modes - 71 W Li-ion battery pack - 2.
- Mobile PC 2001 ACPI 1.0b DMI 2.0 Cisco Compatible Extensions (CCX) Warranty - One-year International Travelers Warranty (ITW) Page 39 of 39 Barry’s Rigs ‘n Reviews http://www.barrys-rigs-n-reviews.com All trademarks used are properties of their respective owners. Copyright © 2003-2007 by Barry Little. All Rights Reserved.