Acer launches Ferrari One netbook

 

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Posted on 25 Sep 2009 at 17:48

Acer has launched a new netbook based on AMD's Vision platform, which includes a new Athlon X2 L310 1.2GHz dual-core processor and an AMD XGP port. The Ferrari One has an 11.6in widescreen display with a 1,366x768 resolution plus an on-board Radeon HD 3200 graphics chip. Alternatively, the XGP port lets you attach an external device that contains a more powerful graphics processor.

As well as a dual-core processor, the Ferrari One has 2GB of RAM and comes installed with the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium or Basic. Acer claims the Dolby Home-powered sound system is beefier than other notebooks its size. There's also a 160GB hard disk, a card reader, and a webcam. Communications include Draft-N wireless, Bluetooth and 3G for access to mobile broadband.

There are a number of surprises in this notebook, not all of which are positive. We can overlook the inclusion of 64-bit Windows on a small notebook with only 2GB of RAM, which seems slightly pointless. AMD's XGP technology, however, is an old idea that never seems to have taken off, and for very good reason. While it's a good idea in principle, in practice it means consumers have to buy a new notebook to take advantage of it.

In addition, the only XGP device available at the moment is a Fujitsu-Siemens model that uses an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 - a mobile graphics chipset - which seems to us to defeat the purpose of XGP, which is to provide desktop-class graphics for notebook computers. Admittedly, the external and internal cards can use CrossFire to boost performance, but it seems a high price to pay for little benefit.

Now, show us a laptop with ATI's new 5870 graphics card plugged in to it, running Crysis at a decent frame rate, and we might be impressed. In any case, we'll wait until we get our hands on a review sample before we make a final decision.

Author: Barry de la Rosa