ACER

Acer Aspire 5650

Acer Aspire 5650 is a 3G enabled laptop features Intel dual-core Core Duo processor with Intel Centrino mobile technology, 15.4″ 200-nit Acer CrystalBrite display, NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600, Acer QuicCharge technology, Acer GridVista, Acer Arcade, Acer CinemaVision, Acer ClearVision, hybrid TV-tuner with TV recording and video capturing features, DVD-Super Multi or DVD-Dual double-layer optical drive, S/PDIF, 5-in-1 media card reader, built-in microphone, Acer Bluetooth VoIP phone option, Acer SignalUp wireless technology, integrated 3G WWAN and Wi-Fi 809.11a/b/g. Acer Aspire 5650 3G notebook runs on Windows XP Media Center Edition, and is Windows Vista Capable and Windows Vista Premium Ready. TrustedReviews reviews Acer Aspire 5650 and concludes with overall rating of 8 out of 10 that “thanks to an embedded HSDPA SIM the Acer is the best notebook we’ve tested for mobile connectivity. The spec of the rest of the notebook is good but on the downside its fairly large and heavy, sports a disappointing screen resolution and graphics performance is under par.”

Acer TravelMate 4020 WLMi

Acer TravelMate 4020WLMi laptop is entry level notebook computer that is powered by Intel Centrino Mobile Technology. Acer TravelMate 4020 series features stylish design and wide-screen 15.4″ LCD display. The notebook also features integrated combo optical drive and wireless LAN.

GCN Lab rates Acer TravelMate 4020 WLMi laptop C+ for performance, C+ for battery life, B- for features and B+ for value and concludes that if you’re looking for something in the $1,000 range, you’d do well to custom-configure something like our Reviewer’s Choice Gateway M465-E or a Dell Latitude D620 to see if you can get the same from those companies as you can from Acer, or more. With no glaring flaws, though, the TravelMate would serve you and your budget well.

Acer Ferrari 4000 (4005WLMi or 4002WLMi)

Acer Ferrari 4000 is a desktop replacement laptop based on its previous models the Ferrari 3000, the Ferrari 3200 and the Ferrari 3400. Acer Ferrari 4000 features AMD Turion processor, 15.4″ WSXGA+ LCD monitor, ATi Radeon Xpress 200 M or ATi Radeon Xpress 200 P, DDR 333 SoDIMM slots, DVD-RAM optical drive, ATI Radeon Mobility X700 with 128MB VRAM, 5-in-1 card reader, supports PCI Express bus, PCMCIA Slot, USB2.0, IEEE1394, Bluetooth and infrared connection.

TrustedReviews reviews Acer Ferrari 4000 with overall rating of 9 out of 10 that Acer has put AMD’s Turion to good use this time, showing that it can match up to the Pentium M in pretty much every respect. The Ferrari 4000 really does look great and represents a huge step forward from the 3200 model that we looked at before. Feature wise you’d be hard pushed to find anything missing, while the price is quite staggering considering the spec. Overall a superb notebook, even if it’s not quite the retail specification.

PC Magazine gives very good editor rating of 4 out of 5 and concludes that with hardware like the 1.8-GHz Turion 64 ML-34 processor, double the memory (1GB DDR RAM), and a faster hard drive, the Ferrari 4000 edged out the HP dv4000 on our SYSmark 2004 tests. The Ferrari 4000’s terrific graphics chipset trounced the dv4000’s integrated Intel chipset and helped the system achieve impressive gaming results. Battery life reached 3 hours 43 minutes, thanks mostly to the 71-Wh battery. Through a partnership with the legendary carmaker, the thin-and-light Ferrari 4000 has a dazzling new design and new components for extra kick under the hood.

CNet gives the good editors’ rating of 6.8 out of 10 and concludes that Acer puts the pedal to the metal with the Ferrari 4000, a notebook that, like the Italian sports car, is powerful and turns heads. The good points include wide, high-resolution 15.4-inch screen, great performance, multipurpose flash card slot, trayless double-layer optical drive and 1GB of RAM. While the bad are lacks of instant-start media player, more expensive than comparable models and odd curved keyboard.