Acer’s relationship with Ferrari has obviously proved good for both as a new range of exclusive notebooks prepares to repeat the formula.

The Acer Ferrari 5000 is a powerful and pricey notebook intended to replace a much bulkier desktop computer.

It's still a big machine, though, around 4cm wider and 2cm deeper than a copy of ComputerActive but this gives it room for a nice big screen.

It uses a 15.4in widescreen display with a high resolution of 1,680 by 1,050, so everything is crisp and detailed.

The Ferrari 5000 uses a dual-core, AMD 64-bit Turion 64 X2 processor, running at 2GHz and with an almost indecent 2Gb of fast memory.

This is coupled to an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics processor with its own 256Mb of video memory. There's a 160Gb hard disk for fixed storage and a neat slot-loading DVD rewriter.

It's all very well to bounce figures and abbreviations around, but how does all this hardware perform? Our tests found the Ferrari 5000 to be up there with some of the quickest notebooks we've seen to date, scoring well in Windows tasks and a wide range of software applications.

Where it did fall down slightly was with graphics. The Ferrari 5000 had few problems running the latest crop of 3D games and DVD movies stuttered at times.

Plus, there's quite a bit of heat from the processor blown out of the right-hand side of the case, so you wouldn’t want to use this notebook on your lap…top. Like their automotive brethren, it makes a fair bit of noise too.

The stereo sound from the small speakers set into its front lip give surprisingly high quality reproduction, though, as good as from some TVs.

Above the screen, at the top of the lid is a webcam, with a swivel so you can adjust its vertical view.

On the main body of this shiny, black, carbon fibre-cased computer is a well laid-out keyboard, with a five-degree curve to the keys, designed to reduce typing problems.

In front of the keyboard is a wide touchpad, but Acer also supplies a Bluetooth optical mouse, again in Ferrari colours.

Bluetooth and 802.11g Wi-Fi wireless links are both supported and a bundled PC card plugs into the side of the Ferrari 5000 to provide free VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) connections, via any Bluetooth-compatible mobile phone.

As well as the PC card slot, there's a separate one for SD and MemoryCards, as well as the usual cluster of network, Firewire and USB sockets.

There’s even an HDMI socket at the back for connection of High Definition video equipment such as compatible flat screen televisions.

Battery life lasts for three and half hours and only needs two hours for a recharge, both of which are good for a high-end notebook like this.

Yes, the Acer 5000 is a steep proposition but it's definitely more Formula One than banger racing.

Also consider
Rock Xtreme CTX T2700
Verdict: The Rock Xtreme CTX T2700 is a truly powerful notebook, but if it’s top performance you’re after you’d do well to wait and see what Core 2 Duo is capable of
Rating: 4
Price: £1761.33