Notebook Reviews

Like most international students studying abroad for university, a notebook is almost essential (it is possible to buy a desktop, but during holidays, when most students return home, it can become a problem and huge drawback). This will be my main (and only) laptop, so a powerful desktop replacement would be needed, but portability is also an issue. Although I will rarely be carrying this around, carrying a 10lb brick in addition to luggage while traveling from university to home is a great hassle.

The Apple PowerBook G4 15-inch (released end of summer this year) provides both power and portability. The machine I choose has the following specs:

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A sports car is a blast, but on a long drive its tight confines and sacrifices in creature comforts make a sporty luxury car more alluring. The same line of thinking is behind the $2,399 Acer Ferrari 5005WLMi (a Windows Vista Ultimate version is available for $2,699). It delivers the sharp looks of the ultraportable Acer Ferrari 1000 but in a scaled-up package that’s more comfortable to use in the home, office, or dorm.

With its glossy carbon-fiber-patterned lid, red accents, and yellow prancing-horse logo, the 5005WLMi stands out from the field of gray and silver notebooks, without being as outlandish as the Alienware Aurora or Asus Lamborghini models. At 6.6 pounds and an inch thick at its leading edge, the unit is manageable to carry.

Pop the lid and you’ll find a sharp black-on-black color scheme. The full-sized keyboard is laid out in Acer’s unique “smile” configuration, which makes for a more natural wrist position for touch typists (the shape is subtle enough not to be offensive to traditionalists). The expansive keyboard deck is covered in a rubberized material that feels good under your palms, and the touchpad features a four-way scroll rocker switch between the two mouse buttons, though in this price range we would have preferred to see a fingerprint reader there. Given the room around the keyboard, dedicated multimedia control buttons would also have been nice.
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