Product Reviews

The original Rock Xtreme CTX was praised for its blend of raw 3D power and genuine portability. Even though it weighed a relatively hefty 4.3kg, it was portable compared to gaming powerhouses at the time, such as Evesham's 6.7kg Quest A630 with its SLI graphics cards and back-breaking potential. Now Rock has made a few adjustments and made a very attractive notebook even better.

It's now known as the Rock Xtreme CTX T2700, and that moniker gives away the first upgrade. Despite the impending release of Core 2 Duo, new Core models are still appearing, and the Core Duo T2700 is the latest and fastest yet. Its two cores run at 2.33GHz, and it's supported by 1GB of 667MHz DDR2 memory. It's only a slight step up from the old T2600, and the 2D benchmark score of 1.07 is good but not outstanding. The most notable leap up comes in our multiple applications test, where the more powerful dual-core CPU helps the score to a very respectable 1.16.

But as with the original CTX, 2D power is just one of this notebook's strengths. We see its real power by loading up Call of Duty 2 and Far Cry, and letting the graphics card roar into life. The CTX now comes with the latest Nvidia GeForce Go 7900 GTX with 512MB of onboard memory. To say it can handle games is an understatement: it isn't quite up there with the gratuitous power of the A630, but it will easily run the latest titles at high resolutions.

The 17in TFT has a native resolution of 1,680 x 1,050, and our benchmarks had little problem achieving high scores. In Far Cry with HDR switched on and AF set to 8x, the Rock managed a healthy 39fps, and it performed similarly in Call of Duty 2, averaging 41fps. And when hooked up to a TFT at 1,600 x 1,200 it still managed a playable 41fps and 40fps in the two games respectively. So 1,280 x 1,024 should

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see you coasting through even next year's games, or try the full resolution without a few of the more intensive graphical effects.

The screen itself is reasonable in terms of clarity and colour handling, although it does lack a little brightness and vibrancy. It's worth considering an upgrade to a 1,920 x 1,200 resolution, costing a reasonable £58 inc VAT extra. There's also an option for a hybrid TV tuner - a rather steeper £93 inc VAT - although you can also upgrade from XP Home to Media Center Edition for no cost.

As for the rest of the chassis, it's solid and reasonably stylish, with the pleasantly firm lid offering plenty of protection to the screen. When it's closed, the media control strip protrudes out in front of the lid, allowing you to play audio CDs while the system itself is powered down. It's a nice touch, although the positioning means your wrists will lie on the buttons during use. You could use the DVD drive with a larger LCD TV thanks to the presence of a DVI port on the rear too.

Despite the size of the chassis, there are only four USB 2 ports, although there's little that you'll need to add. You'll find a 1.3-megapixel webcam staring down from above the screen, and there's Bluetooth and 802.11a/b/g wireless already present.

Battery life is inevitably quite unremarkable, although for a notebook of this size and power the 1hr 28mins of intense use is nothing to be ashamed of. Under light-use conditions, it will give you around two hours - enough for the occasional trip away from the mains.

The 100GB hard disk comes with Microsoft Works and Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 Basic Edition installed, and there's a card reader for SD, MMC and MS cards for further storage and transport of files. The excellent all-round package is completed by three years of collect-and-return warranty. That's also reassuringly insurance backed in case of anything unforeseen happening.

Overall, it's an incremental but worthwhile improvement over the original CTX, with superior battery life, graphics and the top-end T2700 Core Duo processor. And the best part is the price: with the launch of Core 2 Duo on 28 August it will be available for £1,399 (add £100 if you order before that date), which is over £150 cheaper than the CTX. This makes it a much better deal than the Evesham Quest Nemesis, thanks to better 2D and 3D power for only a small premium on price.