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POWER LAPTOP rock Xtreme CTX PRO


Completing our pair of Merom-based laptops this month (see Hi-Grade UltiNote D6000-2102, issue136, p49) is rock’s Xtreme CTX Pro.

The are several models in the Merom family. We know of five currently, but expect more to surface soon. The T7400 is angled towards the higher end of the collection, and it’s also the version that both rock and Hi-Grade have opted for in their latest models.

In fact, looking at the respective specifications of the rock and the Hi-Grade, you could be forgiven for wondering why the price difference between the two laptops is more than £300 – either Hi-Grade is shooting itself in the foot or rock is charging over the odds.

It’s true that the rock’s screen can stretch to a higher resolution, while the graphics card offers better framerates in our graphics tests. But we’re not entirely sure this worth the extra cash.

The Xtreme CTX Pro scored 111 in our WorldBench 5 processing-speed suite, two points behind the Hi-Grade –but a difference like this wouldn’t be noticed by your average user. The rock is certainly a good-looking system, and its games performance was blistering. Framerates of nearly 150fps (frames per second), in both Doom 3 and Halo at a resolution of 1024 x 768, dropping to around 130fps at a resolution of 1280 x 1024, are absolutely staggering.

The other specifications are industry-standard for the desktop replacement market, from 1Gb of DDR RAM and a 100Gb hard drive to 802.11a, b, g wireless facilities. You get Bluetooth, too. The warranty is generous at three years, even if it doesn’t include onsite cover.

Verdict
To be fair, if we hadn’t seen the Hi-Grade we wouldn’t question the high-price of the rock. But we have, and so it’s difficult to recommend something this expensive when a near equivalent exists at a much lower price.

Ben Camm-Jones

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