Racing the 3400

I got a call from a customer this morning who wanted to give a Ferrari 3400 to his wife as an Easter gift; I wonder what the egg looked like 🙂 Needless to say, it had to be ready in time for easter, which gave us about four (4) hours to have everything set-up.

He wanted Windows XP, Office 2003, anti-virus software, and some basic configuration done. So after having a courier pick up the Acer notebook from the distributor, I finally got my hands on this beauty.
And it is a beauty. Just about every detail of this notebook looks like someone other than a computer designer had has his or her hands in putting together. The “Ferrari Pointing Device” is a bit small, if you have big hands; but it sits nicely in the palm of your hand.

The notebook features a 64-bit AMD CPU; plenty of harddisk and memory, the ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics chip, wireless network, BT, card-reader. And, something that more PC notebook manufacturers need to do: Firewire/IEEE1394. The keyboard is (slightly) curved for better hand positioning.

I think the only gripe I have about this machine is: it doesn’t to Firewire 800 (yet?). The only other thing I can think of to say is that perhaps this machine is a bit overpriced once you get tired of the “Happy Red”, but it is a very happy red!

How does it compare to the NC6000 1.8 I’m using? Well, I’m not sure it’s a fair comparison considering that the Acer is “slightly” more powerful given the 64-bit AMD processor, but the NC6000 is fine and dandy for “professional stuff”. When it comes to heavier applications like serious graphics (Photoshop, Paintshop, and Illustrator) or Games, the Acer 3400 rocks! The NC6000 is smaller and more neat; which typically suits me better.

Well done Acer!

Oh, and we did get the Acer 3400 ready and delivered to the customer at 1245 PM.