Acer dual-core Ferrari laptops to debut this month

Acer will hit the gas on its Ferrari notebook line by the end of this month, pushing the pedal to the metal by adding dual-core processors to the prancing pony portable PCs, it has been claimed.

Acer announced the dual-core Ferrari 1000 and 5000 series machines in May this year, stating the two would be based on AMD Turion 64 X2 processors. According to a DigiTimes report, the two models are at least nearing shipment. Certainly, neither model is listed on Acer's website yet.

The 5000 is a black and red carbon-fibre clad machine with a 15.4in widescreen display equipped with a 1.3 megapixel webcam. It will eventually ship with an HD DVD drive, though Acer hasn't yet said when this might take place. The spec's rounded out with a five-in-one memory card reader, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 - Acer's bundling its wireless VoIP phone - Gigabit Ethernet and up to 160GB of hard drive storage.

Buyers looking for a smaller machine may care to take a look at the Ferrari 1000, a 12.1in model equipped with ATI's integrated Radeon Xpress 1150 chipset. ®