Autoblog

A Ferrari PDA. Joy of joys. People still use these things? If you must have one more thing strapped to your belt or stuffed in your pocket, might as well get the one with the Prancing Horse. That way, when everyone else pulls out their toys and starts twiddling as a way to avoid human interaction, you'll have something red, black and flashy.

The Acer 500 is the fruition of an ongoing relationship between the computer maker and the Italian exotic car firm. Launching soon in Europe, the PDA will be equipped with Bluetooth, GPS and an SD card reader. Of less note are the USB 1.1 port and behind-the-curve OS, Windows Mobile 5. We doubt there's been any cranking up of bus speeds inside the unit, but at least this one won't be as costly to fix when you crack it up.

[Source: Caradisiac]

Bandwagons are for jumping on, and this one's carrying laptop computers branded by automakers. Ferrari's was among the first, then Lamborghini jumped on board, and more recently we've seen Koenigsegg and Maybach follow suit. Not to be left out, reports are surfacing that BMW has teamed up with Acer to offer its own range of branded notebook computers.

The partnership seems to be an odd choice, since Acer produces laptops for Ferrari and sponsors their racing team. Reports suggest, however, that the BMW computers will be slotted in below their Ferrari counterparts and sell at lower price points. Based on Acer's Aspire series, the BMW versions will feature extra design features, for which Acer insists the customer will pay no premium.

Buyers will have the choice of Intel Santa Rosa or AMD processors and an optional HD-DVD drive, and the laptops will come complete with all the bells and whistles including 17-inch widescreens, WiFi, surround sound, and HDMI. Instead of offering one or two different models, the information points to a whole range of BMW-Acers that could include as many as 40 different model configurations.

[Source: Engadget]

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Newest Ferarri laptop from Acer

Acer has announced its newest Ferrari-themed notebooks, the 5000 and ultra-portable 1000 series. Powered by the latest AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Mobile chip running at 2.0GHz, and encased in carbon-fiber, the 64-Bit Ferrari 5000 promises a performance edge over the other supercar-logo'd laptops.

Acer tells us that the Ferrari 5000 series utilizes the very latest in video communication, cutting-edge multimedia technology and wireless (and wired) connectivity, "to make it an all-round winner, and the perfect companion to mobile champions." It ships with a 15.4-inch widescreen display, 2 gig of 667 Mhz RAM, a 160GB S-ATA hard drive, and an ATI Radeon Xpress 1600 with up to 512 MB of HyperMemory (256 MB of dedicated GDDR3 VRAM, up to 256 MB of shared memory).

Also featured are an HD-DVD Optical Drive, 5-in-1 Card Reader, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth® 2.0+EDR, a built-in 1.3MP Acer OrbiCam™, Acer Bluetooth® VoIP phone, as well as wireless Bluetooth™ Optical Mouse and Microsoft Windows® XP Professional preinstalled. The 1000 Series, we're told, also packs a lot of hardware into a frame that carries a 12.1-inch display.

Although other laptops on the market might deliver better overall performance at lower prices, they obviously can't match the passion of anything with a Ferrari logo on it. Certainly there is a market for auto-branded laptops, as the Acer Ferraris have to face off with the Asus Lamborghini, Itronix HUMMER and the newly released Koenigsegg CCX laptop.

[Source: Aving and Acer, IntoGear]