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LGR - Acer Ferrari 4005: The $2,000 Laptop from 2005

🕑 Added 2019-08-27 00:14:28 +0000 UTC

Comments

LGR

I did not do so myself, but I bought this from a system refurbishment place that listed those things as having been done by them! Also had a refurb battery, which was nice since many of these are near dead by now.

Tktagmedia

Curious to find out whether or not you cleaned out the laptop's fan and applied fresh thermal paste, and maybe also replaced the likely very dry thermal pad sitting on top of the GPU. Any laptop that old would likely have years and years of dust buildup. You'd be shocked at just how much of a performance gain you can see. Also if you wanted to take it a step further, replacing the GPU thermal pad with a copper shim can dramatically increase the overall performance of the machine.. seriously, it can be a night and day difference in some cases. I'd also be interested to see some AIDA64 data on the motherboard and chipset. Often times you can expand the memory behind the factory listed limits to 3 or 4 gigabytes (especially on 64-bit hardware) and upgrade the CPU beyond documented spec.

LGR

Glad you enjoyed it! And yeah, it came with a good mix of both Schumacher and Barrichello wallpapers.

LGR

Pretty much can never go wrong with that combo, it's true. Especially matte black against a glossy red.

LGR

Dang, now that you mention it I can't unsee it.

LGR

Yeah I'd probably buy that immediately, ha.

LGR

Heh, "the entire world got Foxconned." A succinct and accurate way to put it, what a crazy story that company's history must be.

LGR

Thank you! And yeah I'd assume/hope that Ferrari laptops would be pretty commonplace there, of all places :)

LGR

Interesting, hadn't heard of that before. Might give it a shot on something less valuable first!

LGR

This one pre-dates the time of HD-DVD, but thank you :)

Rubens Barrichello was there too, shortly, but he was! I loved the video btw. Too bad 2005 was a horrible year for Ferrari in the F1 2005 season =/

Chris Munch

I know there's a lot of people that offer different ways to deal with the sticky plastic deal - but I stumbled upon my own solution which has worked really well. Just using good old Pledge. I had some PS2 controllers that were disgusting and sticky and I tried the WD40 method I had seen around, and they were still disgusting, then I had another one where I just cleaned it as best I could using a magic eraser then used Pledge multi-surface/wood cleaner, then wiped it down and cleaned it again - and it was perfect. It's been a few months now and it's still perfect. Super easy to do, not nearly as messy as WD40. I also don't think the magic eraser did anything - BUT if you want some cheap I recommend checking out something like Wish where you can get a bag of 50 of them, shipped, for like $3.

A friend of mine also had a Ferrari (I think it was a 12 inch?!) with the fancy mouse and everything, and it had its motherboard die. I replaced it for him lol. They seem okay, but a bit cheesy in my eyes.

James Newsom

I've owned two of these over the years. I got an Acer Ferrari 3200 as a door prize at an AMD Tech Tour and ran it for a number of years before it was stolen out of my car when my car was parked in the parking garage at work. Insurance replaced it with another Ferrari laptop (that I still have sitting in the closet) that is very much like the one reviewed except mine has the original HD-DVD drive (if you want an original HD-DVD drive for yours Clint, just let me know) and was shipped with Vista, not XP64. Ran great for a long time.

Seán Byrne

A work colleague owned an Acer Ferrari (absolutely insisted on getting one despite the price tag), although don't remember the model #. The main difference I recall is it was a smaller (14" I think) and had a small very temperamental bluetooth phone that stowed in the PCMCIA slot. Not long after the warranty, the keyboard went erratic and even a replacement keyboard keyboard didn't fix the issue, so it was mainly carried around with a full size keyboard. It had an interesting quirk towards the end of its life where the fan bearings went and literally sounded like a Ferrari revving up & down!

Rico da Rooster

Nice video Clint. These laptops were almost a common sight in stores around here in Italy, though I don't think they sold that many.

Dinty's Hideaway

This was a neat look at a system when manufacturers still used a little artistry in portable design. It was right after this that the entire world got Foxconned and everything started looking the same.

BastetFurry

Now i crave a silent laptop with Tesla branding running Linux. :D

OzRetrocomp

The trackpad surround and mouse buttons were a missed opportunity. Those would look much better in Rosso Corsa than they do in silver.

Alyxx the Rat

Mmm, black and red. My favourite colours.

LGR

Not originally, but as mentioned in the video it was a planned upgrade path back then 👍

LGR

DJ pizza cat is always appropriate, I find.

LGR

I always always called that one Need For Burnout: Most Paradise. That was a weird mix of gameplay.

LGR

I mean, a $2,000 laptop in 2005 but yeah! Quite the future-proof option indeed.

Headset Guy

Gigabit Ethernet, on a consumer laptop, in 2005? Wow. That's a lot earlier than I realized...

Pablo Rodriguez

You should really review that Need for Speed: Most Wanted at some point. OK, I don't mean you necessarily "should", but I'd enjoy it very much if you did. That's my favorite game in the entire series. The new one with the same name is... not the same (because it's Burnout with a different name).

Pablo Rodriguez

Well, yes. Wordplay has existed for a while ;)

Gergely Varju

Well. You know, a Ferrari should be very loud even if you can't afford to put good speakers in them.

AlexPeaks

The dj cat playing a pizza really fits with the overall aesthetic

John Piscopo

Man I sure remember those, I wanted the all red one so bad! It’s really a shame laptops aren't as upgradable as deskstops are, I mean maybe one day someone will make a never obsolete laptop that you could easily swap the motherboard or something like a modular thing because those Ferrari branded laptops are too cool!

FADE IN INT - GARAGE Clint: "Here in my garage with my Ferrari," *We see Clint open up laptop on the concrete floor of the garage* Clint: "But you know what I love more than this Ferrari?" *Pan to the card table with a computer on it behind Clint* Clint: "WOODGRAIN."

Steve Lovelace

I noticed the sticker said "Windows XP 64". Did it originally come with that? I've heard the 64-bit version of XP is incompatible with a lot of stuff.

Jason Wellband

Loved all of the puns and wordplay in this one. Never knew such a thing existed!

Jeremy

Appreciate the lack of clickbait buddy! Great content as always.

More than you can afford pal! Ferrrrrrarrri

Sina Farhat

That fan noise!!

avfusion

I remember seeing this in CPU magazine way back in the day, next to the GeForce 6800 that was the envy of my childhood dreams.

Acer laptops do have bad hinges, I’ve seen them break a lot, I’m very surprised that this unit is intact and original well done. ThinkPad laptops have now lost the build quality they once had, I use commercial laptops because their hinges are stronger.

Ha! Very interesting. My XP machine has 4gb of 400mhz ddr ram, and a 3.4ghz pentium 4 ht, and an ati 9800 pro 128mb. I wonder if my machine or this laptop is more powerful. I was surprised to see a ferrari branded laptop, but it's kind of cool, and yes, way pricey! I was 10 in 2005, so I certainly wouldn't have been able to afford it back then. Sucks about the recovery partition being gone. Keep the good videos coming.