Acer Ferrari 3200

We have moved please go to http://www.communitynotebookreviews.com or click HERE

The Review

Well, I’ve been putting it through it’s paces for over a week now, and here are my impressions of the Ferrari 3200:

Overall Build Quality

The 3200 fells sturdy and solid. The curved keyboard is responsive and comfortable. By my desktop replacement standards, it qualifies as a “thin and light”. I’ve been hauling it all over the Vanderbilt campus with no difficulty. The only caveat (covered ad infinitum on other threads here) is the heat. This laptop gets hot, particularly under the left palmrest. Laugh if you will, but I cut a pair of these to fit, and they seem to help.

Screen

Might as well hit this one first since it’s a common area of contention. I am thrilled with this screen. For someone who spends hours and hours writing text, the SXGA resolution is ideal. The screen is bright, clear, and gorgeous. The only downside is that the vertical viewing resolutions are terrible; so – if someone else is going to be looking over your shoulder all the time; this may not be the laptop for you.

Performance

I immediately put in a 7200 RPM Hitachi drive and 2 GB of RAM. I strongly recommend the former, and would recommend at least 1GB of the latter. With those upgrades, running WinXP Pro SP1 and the current drivers for all hardware (including the very latest Omega Drivers), the 3200 runs flawlessly. I’m running it without a swapfile; and it has taken everything I’ve thrown at it with ease. I haven’t had a chance to do much hard-core gaming; so I’ll have to get back to you there.

Battery Life

Approximately three hours (after fully conditioning the battery) running basic office applications with WiFi on intermittently. I’m happy with that, but your mileage may vary.

PC Torque

Adam, Tom, and Luke liived up to their reputation and provided outstanding customer service, including standing fully by their “No Dead Pixels!” policy. I couldn’t be more pleased.

Conclusion

This is the perfect laptop for my needs. It’s very portable, fast enough to handle current games, and offers a little future-proofing with the 64-bit architecture.