Acer F-17: a Ferrari for £300

By Rory Reid on 11 January 2006, 11:45am

You've probably heard about, seen, or even own an Acer Ferrari laptop, or read about the Asus Lamborghini laptop, set for release this April. The 'high-performance' bond between Italy's finest supercars and the humble laptop is a tenuous one, but Crave still appreciates their stylish design and relative exclusivity.

Not content with car-branded laptops, Acer has gone a step further and released a range of Ferrari-branded monitors. 'Why?' you would be perfectly reasonable to ask. Well, according to Acer, it's to celebrate "the victorious partnership between Acer and Scuderia Ferrari", which is marketing-speak for "because we can" (and somewhat inappropriate, given Ferrari lost their F1 title to Renault last year -- obviously not that 'victorious').

Three versions are available: the F-17, F-19 and F-20. The number of each model denotes its horizontal size. An F-17 whizzed its way into Crave's lair this morning, and as striking as it is, met with mixed opinions.

We all agree it has an attractive, if slightly fat, outer bezel, but the retina-searing red rear section is something you'll either love or loathe. On the performance side, the monitor is nicely packed with features. It has an analogue TV tuner, Scart, DVI and D-sub inputs, and bizarrely, what we can only describe as a rear spoiler designed to help organise unruly cables.

It has a rapid 8ms response time, 1,280x1,024-pixel native resolution, a 500:1 contrast ratio and built-in speakers. It'll set you back around £310 -- which is a lot for a 17-inch monitor, but far cheaper than an Enzo. Watch out for a full review shortly. -RR

Update: a full review of the Acer F-17 is now live.