And it’s exactly the market the Rock Laptop is aimed for, especially as it features some mouth watering specs.

Spec List...

• Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 CPU running at 2.33Ghz
• 2GB DDR2 Memory
• 100GB 5400 or Optional 7200rpm drive (Rock now supply 160GB 5400rpm as standard)
• 17" WSXGA+ X-Glass widescreen 1680 x 1050 res display
• NVIDIA GeForce 7950 Go GTX 512MB + can use shared memory
• 4 x USB 2.0 ports
• 1 x Mini IEEE1394a port
• 1x DVI port / Audio jacks (Microphone, Line in, headphone, S/PDIF out)
• 1x S-Video output
• 1x Serial (COM)
• 1 x IrDA Port
• 1x RJ-11 Modem
• 1x RJ-45 10M/100M/1000M Fast Ethernet
• 1x Express Card Slot
• 1x Aerial in (for use with optional TV tuner)
• 8x +/- Dual Layer DVD Writer
• 7.1 Built-in Sound Card
• SD Memory Card Reader
• Webcam-built in
• 3 Year Collect & return Warranty
• Free Interlink ExpressCard Remote
  
• Free Pakuma Choroka K1 Green / Brown (We got a normal Black Laptop bag for review so the inclusion of the Pakuma bag is great for you guys)
  
• Free Pakuma Securuty Lock

Looking on Rocks website the CPU that we got on our review version seems to be out of stock at the moment, as the only CPU on offer is the slower 2Ghz version, but we wanted to let you know that the benchmarks were done on the above spec.

From a design point of view the Rock looks great, with it s logo edged on top of the case and its cool silver finish it does catch the eye. It weighs a ton as well but we think this is a good thing as you know its build quality is up to scratch. There is even a LED system on the front of the laptop that allows you to adjust the volume of the speakers, pause and playback music and view the current time.

The only bad thing we could find from a build quality point of view was with the DVD drive, which was pretty flimsy - but this seems common with most Laptops - however for the price you pay we would expect better.

Supplied with the Rock is a copy of Microsoft’s Home Premium edition of Vista, plus Microsoft Works 8.5 and some utilities/drives.

To give you an idea of how it performed in Vista the Laptop achieved a Windows Experience Index of 4.7 out of 5, which means it can quite happily work with all the advanced functions that Vista can offer if you decide to upgrade to the Ultimate version.

Powering on the unit does take a while as the Vista OS is sluggish on start-up. but once things get going the fast CPU and 2GB of memory kick in and everything runs fine. However the one problem we found was the noise of the fans, at times the squeaking from Graphics card fans is very annoying and though it’s not constant the main fan noises are a pain if you were trying to use the Laptop for more than just games.