Rock Pegasus P330-T2300 review

Rock has produced some of the best desktop replacement PCs, such as its recent SLI machines, which do justice to the latest games. Realistically, however, they aren't that usable on the move.

We've already covered Rock's latest foray into the world of business laptops with the less-than-impressive 550N-T2400, which was still a sizeable machine. The P330-T2300, however, is a laptop that can really be described as a portable business PC.

Portable power

The 13.3-inch widescreen WXGA makes the PC's footprint small enough to be happily carried around in most bags and the miniscule PSU can be readily coiled up. In such a small machine you might expect the manufacturers to be cutting some corners.

This certainly appears to be true with the somewhat miserly 512MB of DDR2RAM, but for a paltry £50 you can have your Pegasus shipped with the 1GB that you should rightfully expect.

Rock has chosen a slower CPU than its 550N. Running at a reasonable 1.66GHz, the processor's still more than capable of dealing with most applications you can throw at it. This is especially true when you have the system plugged into the mains where it's designed to run both cores at a five per cent overclocked rate.

As a business machine you're not going to be playing any games from the past few years that rely on 3D modelling. The Intel 950GMA is one of the best integrated graphics solution out there and easily beats the latest small-form Alienware Sentia laptops.

Even so, a relatively old game such as Far Cry still runs at an unplayable frame rate. If you're a Civilisation IV buff, or a Football Manager 2006 addict, however, then you'll be happy as a manager in a sheepskin coat with the computer's performance.

As a portable, Media Center-like notebook it really comes into its own. The packaged USB DVB tuner is a decent touch for those of you lucky enough to live in an area where you can receive the signal, and the X-Glass screen is perfectly watchable from all but the most obtuse of angles.

Instant access

The P330 also has an InstantOn feature that bypasses Windows and boots straight to a slightly clunky but usable media player. This enables you to watch DVDs and TV or listen to your MP3 collection without wasting battery on the power-hungry Microsoft OS. The silent running mode can be switched on during normal use and likewise saves battery use by throttling back the fan.

It's not all plain sailing for the P330, however, because when you're pitching the machine as a media laptop you need a decent amount of storage. The 80GB SATA hard drive isn't tiny, but when competitors are employing 160GB drives you could be forgiven for feeling slightly let down.

That said, the Pegasus P330 is an excellent laptop. Its small, sleek design and media features make it ideal for the travelling user, and has all the productivity power you could need. Core Duo machines are rarely cheap and at £880 you couldn't call the P330 such, but it's definitely good value for money.