SIGMA
SI
Gold Award
PC Home (June '01)
Silver on the outside and black on the inside, the Sigma
Si from rockdirect.com manages to stay up there with the best
in terms of looks. Rock has submitted a number of quality,
high spec notebooks over the past months, so it was no surprise
to see that this effort included a 1GHz Pentium III processor
from Intel. What we really didn’t expect, however was to find
an ample 256Mb of RAM begging to be used by any array of applications.
Keeping up with the high-spec theme, the screen measures
in at an impressive 14.1”, whilst the 20Gb hard drive should
be able to cope with storing more than a few programs. The
graphics card shares the whopping 256Mb of RAM and can be
allocated either 8Mb, 16Mb or a maximum of 32Mb of RAM, which
will allow the 1GHz processor to run some pretty graphics-intensive
programs.
FIREWIRE READY
Skimming around the outside of the Sigma Si revealed the
usual two USB ports, modem socket and other connection possibilities.
However, something that is rarely found on desktop PC’s was
located, namely an IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port. It’s uses are
at the moment a little limited since there aren’t many PC
devices that use this ultra-fast technology, but fairly soon
you’ll see it really taking off in terms of Digital Video
and other high-bandwidth tasks, so don’t think it isn’t useful!
Another small surprise is that unlike the other manufacturers
in this roundup, Rock has decided to stick with Windows 98
rather than the newer Me version; the debate still rages on
as to whether Me offers better or worse performance.
The Sigma Si manages to be the almost expensive notebook
on offer here, so is the £1,644 asking price reasonable? We’ll
we have to give it the thumbs-up. When you consider that you’re
getting a super-fast 1GHz processor, a whopping 256Mb of RAM,
all sat in an overall good quality notebook with a 14.1” screen,
it’s a real ‘value for money’ high-power notebook.
MODEL |
Rock Sigma Si |
RATING |
90 |
PRO'S |
Super-high specification |
CON'S |
Most expensive in this round up |
VERDICT |
|
PROCESSOR |
Intel Pentium PIII 1GHz |
RAM |
256Mb |
HARD DISK |
20Gb |
DISPLAY |
14.1" XGA TFT |
DRIVES |
8 x DVD-ROM Drive and Internal 3.5" 1.44Mb Floppy drive |
OTHER |
Internal 56k modem |
OTHER |
Internal 10/100mbps LAN |
OTHER |
IEEE 1394 Firewire |
WARRANTY |
1 Year Collect and Return |
PRICE |
£1,644 (INC. VAT) |
WINSTONE |
N/A |
PC Home Gold Award
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