The Ferrari name is associated with fast cars, speedy performance, and good looks. Apply that to the laptop world and you’d naturally expect a notebook bearing the Ferrari name to share these characteristics. Acer certainly turns heads with its Ferrari One notebook ($599 as tested), a sleek system that is to traditional ultraportables what the Ferrari F430 is to the Mitsubishi Eclipse. Packed with an AMD Athlon CPU (instead of an Intel ULV processor) and ATI Radeon graphics, Acer’s Ferrari One obviously wants to set itself apart from the crowd. But will it speed past the competition to the checkered flag or end up in a twisted wreck on the side of the track?

Design

The Ferrari One looks like the sportier bad-boy twin of the Acer Aspire 1410. The chassis is nearly identical, but the Ferrari One adds an extra cut to the front of the system for an aerodynamic look. The lid highlights the notebook’s sports car motif with its Ferrari racing red color and the company’s canary yellow emblem embossed into the plastic. Though it’s glossy and attracts a few smudges, the lid doesn’t show them off too badly. Just keep the Turtle Wax handy for public exhibitions.

The similarities with the 1410 continue under the hood, but with key differences. For starters, there are red accents for the matte black of the deck and the notebook’s keys. The power button on the top right achieves a streamlined look with a backlit red glow and swoop. The wrist rest is also graced with a Ferrari logo and a textured pattern evocative of the checkered flag. The red accents continue on the left and right side; a red swoop peels around the VGA port on the left and the Ethernet port on the right.

The six-cell battery sits flush with the system. Overall, the Ferrari One gives an impression of sleekness and speed.

Heat

Though heat and high-octane performance often go hand in hand in the auto world, it isn’t exactly a desirable trait on a notebook. While writing this review we noticed that the underside of the Ferrari One got too hot for comfort. Even with a passive notebook cooler underneath, the excess heat continued to be noticeable. We let the Ferrari One sit idle for 5 minutes before streaming a Hulu clip at full screen. After 15 minutes of playback, we measured the temperatures at key locations. The touchpad was an uncomfortable 97 degrees Fahrenheit, and the space between the G and H keys was 95 degrees, which is just on the edge of tolerable. Unfortunately, the underside of the machine got considerably hot; the left front side measured an unacceptable 110 degrees.