Acer invited us to Monza today for the launch of its latest Ferrari branded effort, the Ferrari One. As the name suggests this is a netbook, but it's no ordinary Atom-based bore fest. No, coinciding with AMD's newly launched Congo platform and the company's joint sponsorship of the F1 team, the Ferrari One is a step above current offerings.
It starts with an AMD Athlon X2 L310 processor, which has two cores running at 1.2GHz and 1MB L2 Cache. It plugs into the M780G chipset and uses the ATI Radeon 3200 integrated graphics chipset, a marked improvement on the disappointing X1250 graphics found in the HP Pavilion dv2. Key among its abilities is hardware acceleration of high definition video, so 1080p video is very much in the equation.
There's more to the Ferrari One, too. Intriguingly it features support for ATI's XGP technology, allowing one to connect external graphics via a port on the side. This sounds great and all, but if AMD is trying to resurrect this promising (but quickly forgotten) tech, then the Ferrari One seems an odd candidate - even with decent graphics it'll be severely CPU limited.
Moving to more superficial matters, the F1 (see what we did there?) is clearly based on Acer's 11.6in (1,366 x 768) netbook, but features lashings of red on the lid and elsewhere, too. It's a nice looking thing really, being slim and eye-catching without resorting to garishness.
Hardware highlights, new AMD platform accepted, include Draft-N Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional HSDPA and a 5,600mAh, six-cell battery. Dolby Home Theatre also joins the party, but with prices apparently starting at 499 Euros (£435), a Ferrari premium still very much applies. It's due to go on sale on October 22nd to coincide with the launch of Windows 7, which is the OS of choice.
More photos can be found on the following page...
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