Netbooks are Awesome! (Just bought a Ferrari Acer One)

Who here owns a little netbook? They annoy me. And laptops in general, but I am a changed man today!

Anyone here ever bought anything from the Acer Ferrari range?

I'd have forever steered clear of anything Acer, from general feedback over the years.

However... I waited for this to be tested and toyed for over a year before I committed, and it is still scoring very positive reviews, and very few major complaints.

So yes, I bought a Ferrari Acer One Netbook.

Apart from the obvious garish red lid, I actually am warmed to it totally now, it looks rather nice indeed, and I despise red! Pics do not do it justice, it has a shimmery metallic red colour like the F1 cars themselves, not the neon orange red the images portray.

As for specs, my god, for something so tiny does this little thing fly! My mum has a Samsung N220 in white - I was impressed then, but now mine whips hers to shreds.

No purpose for this thread other than to share my increased pleasure expectation, and definite reccomendation of this netbook! I think it was quite a good buy, considering I can now check and edit quick AutoCAD files, Photoshop and InDesign on the go, without having to lug a massive laptop around. Sure, only a couple of hours battery, still better than a 15 or 17 inch bouldar!










Acer Ferrari One 200
11.6″ display screen @ 1366×768 pixels (LED)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core L310 @ 1.2GHz
3GB DDR2 RAM
250GB SATA HDD
ATI Radeon HD 3200 with 384MB dedicated (max 1.5GB shared)
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR
1.3MP webcam
3x USB, ATI XGP connector, VGA, HDMI
6-cell battery (up to 5 hours)
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2010 10:14AM by danm.

I recommended one to Chet a few weeks back - no idea if he's still considering it or not.

We've just rolled out one for each of our year 7s this year (all part of the Classroom of the Future and all that crap) and I've been singing their praises since I got the first to test last spring.

They could barely be any more tacky if they tried, but the kids love all that garish Ferrariness (even the girls, weirdly), so I don't care.

The specs are brilliant. Nice and frugal, yet unless you do some CPU-intensive task it's hard to tell. It is a touch less sharp to use than an comparative recent laptop, but only a touch.

It and Windows 7 make a great combination. Windows XP feels quite clunky and it's slower (as XP is on any modern system), but with 7 it's excellent.

The difference between it and the original Aspire One (with the SSD) is unreal. That SSD is the slowest drive I've ever had the displeasure of using. It's close to being totally unusable.

I'm not much of a fan of netbooks generally - for mobility I prefer my XPS 1530 - but for those who don't mind the size, or appreciate the size, it's hard to recommend against the Ferrari One if you take the aesthetics out. As value for money goes, they're epic.

It looks very swish...do want.

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[www.mediafire.com] Some say you should click it, you know you want to. [www.gp4central.com] <----GP4 Central

My only gripe is the missing HDMI output. But that is workable.

Gav, how clunky did you find the acer software preloaded? I think I will format it with clean W7 tonight, the amount of Ferrari junk on their is amusing.

Nearly bought a refurbed Studio XPS 13/17 - a gamble given their horrific heating issues. But that model looks so stunning, what with the bare hinges and lit keypad.

Still, I am more than pleased with this. Just gotta find a nice case/screen protector/sleeve to stop it getting scratched to hell.


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Hehe, nice find Dan :D

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What type of Ferrari Junk is on it?

Quote
danm
Gav, how clunky did you find the acer software preloaded? I think I will format it with clean W7 tonight, the amount of Ferrari junk on their is amusing.

Only briefly used it when I forgot to hit F12 to boot from my USB stick to wipe the hard drive and place our Windows image on it. It took a while to load up all the crap, but I've not idea how much it slowed it down.

I would do what you're going to and just wipe it anyway. You can use a standard Win 7 Home Premium DVD and use the serial number on the underside to activate, but it won't activate over the net - you'll need to use the free phone call and deal with the activation numbers - it does activate without you having to be transferred to a human though.

Quote
Monza972
What type of Ferrari Junk is on it?

Screensavers, desktop pictures, user account picture, a deafening sound of an F1 car going past that plays every time you start it up (even for an F1 fan that would quickly become a royal pain in the arse unless you removed it). The sort of random crap which you could do better by using pics off the net... not that anyone in their right mind would want to do that though, eh Mr. Monza?

Quote
Gav

Screensavers, desktop pictures, user account picture, a deafening sound of an F1 car going past that plays every time you start it up (even for an F1 fan that would quickly become a royal pain in the arse unless you removed it). The sort of random crap which you could do better by using pics off the net... not that anyone in their right mind would want to do that though, eh Mr. Monza?

Well...

Bring on the tendonitis and sluggishness!

Ah, someone who's never used a Ferrari One speaks.

Have to say, when Gav recommended this netbook to Chet that time, I checked out the link and was massively impressed by it. It's absolutely gorgeous, and from what I can see, there's really no faults or downsides to it. I definitely plan to get one of these for my next computer, or just whenever I can afford one(I agree it seems brilliant value for money too). At the moment I have an Acer Aspire 5715Z laptop from early 2008, which isn't bad, but I'm checking out potential upgrades and/or replacements all the time, and this is top of my list. Dan, good choice!

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One thing to keep in mind with these little netbook-laptop bridge machines. There is no CD/DVD drive. Not a problem in the world of software and content being downloadable, but if it comes to reinstalling Windows you're going to have to look at making a USB-bootable Windows installation and a 4GB or bigger USB stick (and normally an SD card would work - though that depends on the memory card reader itself - I know you can boot the Ferrari One through an SD card, but I've not tried installing Windows through it). There is the recovery partition, but personally I'd format the drive, reclaim the space and install Windows over USB.

Either that or buy a little USB-powered DVD drive.

For anyone wanting something similar to the Ferrari One without the garish red and sea of badges, there is the HP Pavilion dv2, which looks very similar on paper. Never used one personally though.

Ive had mine since launch last december!

Gonna order me a ferrari netbook soon, been looking for one and this seems to fit the bill perfect Couple of questions though:

Is it possible to add more ram?
SSD drive or bigger 7200rpm drive?

The ferrari stuff included sounds pretty crappy, how about's can I make a USB stick that I can install 7 from and format the drive with Gav?

Thanks.

Edit:// Whats the best USB size to get for a full 7 Home Premium 64bit install? 8GB?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2010 12:02AM by mika19b.

Coincidentally I've got one in front of me right now, and it has 2 RAM slots, but only 1 stick of RAM, so you should be able to upgrade to 4gb easily.

I've not seen a Ferrari One with an SSD, so can't comment on that. The hard drive is fine (and can also be upgraded easily if needs be). Note that while most SSDs are way quicker than hard drives, the one in the original normal Aspire One is atrocious, so if you are tempted by an SSD version, check some reviews to see what it's like first.

As for a Windows install over USB, I've never needed to do one (I've got an external USB DVD drive). The second Google result is this (the first is for the Windows 7 download version I believe). You'll need a 4gb stick (though an SD card should work if you've got one).

I'll have a look into it further tonight when I've more time.

Checked earlier, and the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool does work with ISO images, so you can make a USB installer extremely easily.

You will need a Windows 7 ISO file (either the same version as the one you have (so Home Premium for the Ferrari One) or use eicfg_removal_utility.zip to make an all-in-one Windows 7 ISO file) from which to create the USB installer.

Thanks Gav

Somethings come up so can't get it for a couple of weeks now! Still I can make my Boot USB ready for when i need it.

Typing off my new netbook :D

Decided to go for a HP Pavilion dm1-1020sa.

(Proper Spec's - Amazon has a few bits wrong).

Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit)
Intel Celeron DualCore Processor SU2300, 1.2 GHz, Level 2 cache 1 MB
3072 MB (1 x 1024 MB + 1 x 2048 MB DDR3), Supports up to 4 GB DDR3 memory
250 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive 5400 rpm, up to 12 GB partition for system recovery
5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards
Webcam with Integrated Microphone
Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN, 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth wireless networking
11.6 inch Diagonal HD LED BrightView Widescreen Display
Display Resolution: 1366 x 768
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD, up to 1309 MB total available graphics memory
Altec Lansing speakers

It so small and light its perfect for browsing around the house and taking to college.

Really happy with the performance, only modification I made is putting in a 250GB 7200rpm Hard drive (Western Digital Scorpio Black) and a fresh clean install of Windows 7 to remove all the HP rubbish

Activated again over the phone no problems (cheers Gav).

For anyone interested I make a boot USB stick with Koala, it installed Win7 very quickly without a problem.

Quote
mika19b
For anyone interested I make a boot USB stick with Koala, it installed Win7 very quickly without a problem.

You realise I posted 2 posts earlier that Microsoft themselves have released such a tool?

gav Wrote:
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> > For anyone interested I make a boot USB stick
> with Koala, it installed Win7 very quickly without
> a problem.
>
>
> You realise I posted 2 posts earlier that
> Microsoft themselves have released such a tool?
>

I did give it a go Gav but it wouldn't work.

After some google searching it seems it only works with iso files bought off the Microsoft Store :/