You are here: ZDNet UK > Reviews > Hardware > Notebooks

Mobile devices Toolkit

Acer launches Dothan and 64-bit notebooks, plus a budget handheld

Charles McLellan ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 27 May 2004

Acer Ferrari 3200

Last year, Acer, as a sponsor of Ferrari's Formula One team, introduced a 'special edition' notebook based on the TravelMate 800 and decked out in the famous red livery with the prancing horse badge. Athough the £1,299 (ex. VAT) Ferrari 3000 was visually arresting and had undoubted 'boy's toy' appeal, Acer didn't expect it to sell in large numbers. However, according to David White, Acer's Notebook Business Manager, the company sold 'a lot', with orders exceeding supply two or three-fold.

So now the company has come up with the £1,499 (ex. VAT) Ferrari 3200, which is an even more desirable system. Like its predecessor, the 3200 is based on its high-end TravelMate counterpart (in this case the TM 8000 series), but with a different design (clearly) and CPU. The processor in question is AMD's Mobile Athlon 64 2800+.

Acer's Ferrari 3200 is based on the new TravelMate 8000 series, but uses a 64-bit AMD Mobile Athlon 64 2800+ processor.

Apart from its 64-bit CPU, the other main point of difference from the high-end TM 8006LMi model described on the previous page is the optical drive, which in the Ferrari 3200 model is a convenient slot-loading rather than tray-loading Super Multi DVD drive. There's one other thing: the Ferrari 3200 comes with a matching red optical mouse.

We look forward to reviewing this rubicund road warrior at the earliest opportunity.

Acer N30

Acer's latest Pocket PC handheld is the N30, whose design brief, according to the company, was to provide 'the best value for money with Bluetooth built in". At just £199 (inc. VAT), the price is certainly in the right area, and the specification of this pleasingly thin (13mm) and light (133g) device looks pretty useful too.

The Acer N30 Pocket PC handheld has built-in Bluetooth (but not Wi-Fi) and costs just £199 (inc. VAT).

Aimed at business users rather than consumers, the N30 concentrates on essentials rather than delivering a slew of multimedia features. It's based on a 266MHz Samsung processor, and comes with 64MB of RAM plus 32MB of flash ROM. The OS is Microsoft's Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Premium Edition, which comes with extra bundled applications like a Terminal Services client and e-Book Reader.

The N30's screen is a high-brightness 3.5in. transflective TFT unit, expansion is via an SDIO-compatible SD/MMC slot and extra applications include a backup utility. Among the options are a car charger and a Wi-Fi SDIO card, and there's talk of a Bluetooth GPS navigation solution to follow in due course.

Acer says that it expects to reduce the price of the N30 to £179 (inc. VAT) 'very quickly' after launch -- probably as early as the beginning of July.