Acer Ferrari One FO200-1799 (Athlon 64 X2 L310 1.2GHz review: Acer Ferrari One FO200-1799 (Athlon 64 X2 L310 1.2GHz

Outside branding on laptops is relatively rare, with occasional appearances by World of Warcraft or MLB baseball teams turning up in paint jobs, but little in the way of overall product design. A rare exception can be found in the race-car-themed laptops put out by Asus (Lamborghini) and Acer (Ferrari).

7.6

Acer Ferrari One FO200-1799 (Athlon 64 X2 L310 1.2GHz

The Good

Speedy Netbook-size system; good battery life.

The Bad

Oddly shaped touch pad; priced out of the Netbook market.

The Bottom Line

Acer's auto-branded Ferrari One FO200 may look like an 11-inch Netbook, but it sports a dual-core AMD CPU and a mainstream laptop price to match.

These product lines were typically slightly jazzed-up versions of standard laptops, but with inflated price tags and occasionally, branded accessories such as mousepads and cases.

The new Ferrari One from Acer follows this trend, taking a basic 11-inch Netbook shell and decking it out in official Ferrari red, with the automaker's iconic horse logo. The internal components have also gotten an upgrade, with a dual-core AMD processor and 4GB of RAM giving us a lot more horsepower than a typical Atom-powered Netbook.

Of course, all this comes at a price, and at $599, we'd be tempted to just jump into a thin 13-inch Intel ULV model, such as the 13-inch Toshiba T135. At the right price, we'd be tempted to make this 11-inch Netbook-plus our go-to travel system, but as is, it's a tough sell beyond Ferrari fans only.

Borrowing from the existing line of Acer/Gateway Netbooks, the Ferrari One 200 has a slim chassis, similar also to the HP Mini 311, but with automotive-style glossy red paint on the lid and a textured black wrist rest. Yellow Ferrari horse logos sit on the back of the lid and the far right side of the wrist rest.

When open to the system tray, only that wrist rest logo and a Ferrari imprint on the mouse button bar give away the system's provenance. From the back, however, the system screams out for attention, so be ready for friends, colleagues, and passersby to either ask about it or at least give you a funny look. There's also a preinstalled Ferrari Windows theme, which includes a desktop calendar.

Most of the interior real estate is taken up by the large keyboard, with flat, nearly edge-to-edge keys. We found the keyboard to be easy to use (for a Netbook-size system), and appreciated the large Tab, Shift, and Function keys. The touch pad, on the other hand, was oddly angled--wider at the top and tapered at the bottom--which seems needlessly complex. We're also not a fan of the single rocker bar for the left and right mouse buttons, much preferring to have two separate buttons.

The 11-inch display has a 1,366x768 native resolution, which is the new standard for 11-inch (and a few upscale 10-inch) Netbooks. That's great for playing back 720p HD video, or even some light gaming (see our list of Netbook-friendly games), and gives you much more screen real estate than a traditional 1,024x600 Netbook display.

While not common in most Netbooks, a few higher-end models have started to include HDMI ports for easy hookup to a monitor or TV. The Ferrari only has a standard VGA jack, along with three USB 2.0 ports and an SD card slot. Also absent from the mix is Bluetooth--a shame for a system in this price range.

The real star of the show, even more than the race car branding, is the dual-core AMD Athlon X2 L310 processor. Like the dual-core Intel Atom 330, because of heat issues, you likely won't see this in a 10-inch Netbook. While the Ferrari One 200 is no speed demon, it's certainly much faster than your typical single-core Atom Netbook, and because it's dual-core, basic multitasking is less likely to make you rip your hair out in frustration.

Keep in mind, however, that Intel's next generation of Atom chips has just arrived, and even though they don't do more in terms of raw performance, they offer much improved battery life than either this CPU or the current crop of Atom N270 and N280 chips.

In anecdotal use, we found the Ferrari One to be much closer in performance to a dual-core ULV system than an Atom-powered Netbook, with little of the slowdown and stuttering we've become accustomed to from most 10- and 11-inch Netbooks. Thanks to this better-than-a-Netbook performance, it's quickly become one of our favorite travel laptops.

Juice box
Acer Ferrari One	Average watts per hour
Off (60 percent)	0.28
Sleep (10 percent)	0.88
Idle (25 percent)	16.56
Load (5 percent)	30.80
Raw kWh	52.00
Annual energy cost	$5.90

The Acer Ferrari One ran for 3 hours and 27 minutes on our video playback battery drain test, which is respectable for an 11-inch Netbook-size system without a protruding extended battery. In our less grueling real-world Web surfing and Office doc use, we found we could use the Ferrari One on and off all day, without worrying too much about battery life.

Acer includes an industry-standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty with the system. The company sells extended warranties through its Web site, offering two additional years for $99, or $199 with "accidental damage" included. Support is accessible through a 24-7 toll-free phone line, an online knowledge base, and driver downloads, but we've always found Acer's support Web sites confusing to navigate.

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System configurations:

Acer Ferrari One
Windows 7 Home Premium; 1.2GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core L310; 4096MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 384MB (Dedicated) ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200; 250GB Seagate 5,400rpm

Acer Aspire One 532h-2326
Windows 7 Starter; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 250MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 3150; 250GB Seagate 5,400rpm

Asus Eee PC 1005PE
Windows 7 Starter; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 251MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 3150; 250GB Seagate 5,400rpm

HP Mini 5102
Windows 7 Starter; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 248MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 3150; 160GB Seagate 7,200rpm

Toshiba Mini NB305-N410BN
Windows 7 Starter; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 250MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 3150; 250GB Hitachi 5,400rpm

Sony Vaio Eco VPC-W212AX
Windows 7 Starter; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 250MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 3150; 250GB Seagate 5,400rpm

Asus Eee PC 1201N
Windows 7 Starter; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N330 Dual-Core; 2048MB DDR2 SDRAM 2050MHz; 256MB Nvidia ION; 250GB Hitachi 5,400rpm