Reviews / Pegasus 330 - PC Answers
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Pegasus P330-T2300
Fancy going on the road with a sleek and sexy, Rock-steady dual-core laptop?

“As a portable Media Centre-like notebook, Rock’s Pegasus really comes into its own”

Rock has produced some of the best desktop replacement PC’s, such as the recent SLI machines, that do justice to the latest games. Realistically, however, they aren’t that usable on the move.
We covered Rock’s latest foray into the world of business laptops in our May issue with the less-than-impressive 550N-T2400, which was still a sizeable machine. The P330-T23--, however, is a laptop tat can be described as a portable business PC.

Portable Power
The 13.3 in widescreen WXGA makes the PC’s footprint small enough to be happily carried around in most bags and the miniscule PSU can be readily called up. In such a small machine you 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 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 years that rely on 3D modelling. The Intel 950GMA is one of the best integrated graphics solution out there and easily beats the 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 Centre-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 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 the 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 being slightly let down. That said, the Pegasus 330 is an excellent laptop. Its small, sleek design and media features make it ideal for the travelling user, and have 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.


PC Answers verdict: 84%

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