Xtreme
Personal Computer World (June
'04)
BEST BUY AWARD
A
desktop replacement to be proud of.
It’s not often that we can recommend a notebook
for 3D gaming. However, improvements in mobile graphics
have made notebooks, such as the Rock Xtreme serious
considerations when replacing desktop PCs.
With a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512MB of DDR400
Ram and a 60Gb hard disk, the Xtreme is no slouch in
Windows either and gained a respectable Sysmark 2004
score of 173.
Its 128MB ATI Radeon Mobilty 9600 Pro graphics chipset
helped it notch up 74fps in Unreal Tournament and churn
out an impressive score of 2,880 in 3Dmark03, some
of the best results we’ve seen outside the desktop
domain.
With all this technology something has to give and
that is its size. It’s an absolute beast, weighing
4.kg and half as thick as a phone directory. However,
its reflective black coating and smooth edges make
it attractive. There’s a lot of room to rest
your hands while typing.
The 15in SXGA TFT screen can cope with resolutions
up to 1,400 x 1,050 and looks great when playing DVD
movies on the Sony Multi-format DVD-Writer.
On the back are four USB2 ports, mini Firewire and
PS/2. There’s also 5.1 audio and a digital-out
port for connecting to a home theatre system, built-in
Bluetooth, 802.11g Wifi and ‘audio DJ functions’ to
control volume and CD/DVD playback.
It runs Windows XP Home and comes with Ability Office,
anti-virus software and a three year collect and return
warranty.
| VERDICT: |
Its far from cheap, but this is a powerful
desktop replacement |
| PERFORMANCE: |
5/5 |
| FEATURES: |
4/5 |
| VALUE FOR MONEY: |
3/5 |
| OVERALL |
4/5 |
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rockdirect are the UK's No1 Award Winning
specialist Notebook manufacturer.