Acer Ferrari 3000LMi

5/24/04 - Acer has been a long time builder of computer systems, but they have recently decided to develop stylish computer systems. To do this, they licensed the Ferrari name and dsitinctive red color to use on their new line of Ferrari notebooks.

The Ferrari 3000LMi uses AMD Athlon XP-M 2500+ processor, the low-voltage mobile version of the popular XP 2500+ desktop processor. It provides very strong computing performance but with lower power consumption than its desktop version. Matched to this is 512MB of PC2700 memory giving it a good boost over most thin and light notebooks.

Storage is exceptional in the Ferrari 3000LMi. The 60GB hard drive is on the larger side for a notebook of this size and provides good performance. The big item though is the dual format DVD burner included with the system. Most thin and light systems opt for the CD-RW Combo drives instead. Also included is a 4-in-1 media card reader for transferring data to digital peripherals.

Graphics on the Ferrari 3000LMi are strong for the thin and light category, but it isn't quite up to level for a gaming system. The Radeon 9200 with 128MB of memory provides good performance for DirectX 8.1 based games, but it lacks support for DirectX 9 applications. The new Radeon 9600 or 9700 would have been a better selection.

The biggest downside to the Acer Ferrari 3000LMi is its limited software. There is no included productivity software. But for those looking for a stylish system, this unit provides a lot of it.