Acer Ferrari 5005WLMi

Reviewed by: nemophoto

Duration of ownership: 9 Months

Strengths: Looks, external connectors, battery life, HD capacity, screen -- not TOO glossy, and able to be calibrated.

Weaknesses: USB perfromance

Overall Evaluation: I loved my Ferrari -- which is why I got rid of it after 9-months of mostly collecting dust. I discovered shortly after purchase that, not unlike rev limiters on engines, there was a "rev" limit to USB transfer rates -- a SERIOUS limit. The maximum transfer rate with external USB2 drives is a paltry 12MB/sec. This is way below the real-world limit of 28-30MB/sec. Even my 5-year old Sager transferred at 28MB/sec. I'm a photographer and work with pocket-sized USB drives to offload images while on location, so a transfer rate less than half the speed it should be, translates into significantly more work time at the end of a long day. The computer was sent in to Acer twice. Each time they stated there was nothing wrong with the notebook. Only, from my standpoint, it was crippled. So as much as I loved it, I sold it. STAY AWAY from this notebook if you have serious work to do and use external hard drives. (P.S. - Firewire speeds were full and normal.)