Product Reviews

Most notebooks are designed either as powerful 'desktop replacement' systems, or to run away from the mains for hours.

One of the main differences between these two types of laptop is the type of technology they use to produce 3D graphics. The former use a dedicated 3D processor, as these produce the best graphics for gaming, while the latter use a more energy-efficient integrated graphics chip. Rockdirect's Pegasus 650 is the first notebook we've seen that combines both.

This unusual trick gives the system something of a split personality. When you're just surfing the Internet or typing letters, it uses a low-power Intel graphics chip to save battery life. If, however, you decide to play some 3D games, you can flick a switch to enable the ATI Radeon X700 graphics processor, and spend a few hours destroying vividly rendered 3D zombies.

FEATURES

The Pegasus 650 has everything you'd expect to find in a decent desktop replacement notebook. It has 512MB of RAM, and a sizeable 80GB hard disk. The left-hand side of the chassis contains a DVD writer. This can write to both DVD-R and DVD+R discs at 8x, and is a great way to backup your important files.

On the other side of the notebook are three USB 2 ports and a mini-FireWire connector, so there's plenty of scope for adding peripheral devices. Digital camera owners will appreciate the four-in-one memory card reader located on the front of the laptop.

ERGONOMICS

The Pegasus has a large, but extremely solid case, with a smart gunmetal silver finish. It feels very sturdy, but doesn't weigh too much. At 3.2kg it's no

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featherweight, but it's still light enough to transport.

The large case holds a screen that's equally large, and particularly impressive. It has a widescreen resolution of 1,280x800, so it's ideal for watching DVDs, playing games, or doing some office work. It doesn't have the reflective coating that you'll find on many gaming notebooks, but it has excellent contrast and produces blocks of colour with no grain.

The keyboard is large, with a sensible layout and keys that are pleasant to type on. Unfortunately, the touchpad is very difficult to use. Trying to select an icon on screen was tricky, as the cursor leapt and jumped around. This will be annoying if you plan to work on the move regularly - after a few minutes, we were looking around for a mouse to connect.

PERFORMANCE

At the heart of the Pegasus is Intel's Pentium-M 750. This runs at 1.86GHz, but slows down to save the battery when less power is required. It scored 85.55 in our 2D benchmark. This is powerful enough for most tasks, but you can buy a faster laptop for less money - Mesh's Dynamo Plus CBX costs £999, and scored 98.64.

A small switch at the front of the notebook switches between the two available graphics processors. In order to play games, you'll want to enable the Radeon X700 graphics chip. With this turned on, the Rock stormed through our Doom 3 test at 23.1 frames per second (fps). This is an impressive score for a laptop with a mobile processor, and means you'll be able to play the latest 3D games.

With this graphics chip enabled, the Pegasus 650's battery lasted for a decent 2 hours 23 minutes. We expected to increase this significantly by switching to the Intel graphics processor - but after doing so, the Pegasus ran for 2 hours and 34 minutes. With only 11 minutes between the two times, there seems little point ever switching away from the ATI graphics card.

CONCLUSION

Rock's Pegasus 650 is a stylish desktop replacement notebook with a great screen. If you only want to play games or work in Windows then you can buy better. But if you need to work away from the mains as well as playing 3D games, this is a good choice - just remember to buy a USB mouse as well.