Rock Pegasus TL review

Whether it's by plane, train or automobile, travelling can be a tedious business if all there is

to do is stare out of the window and count pylons.

Rock thinks it has the answer: this dinky little laptop with its long battery life and special media-playing functions is specially designed to keep you entertained on the move.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

When choosing a laptop, people often forget to check how heavy it is. Even if you don't need to carry it around a lot, a machine that's too heavy can quickly become a nuisance and a drag. Even at home, if you want to surf the Net while you're watching TV, you don't want a behemoth of a notebook crushing your thighs. At just 2.2kg, the Pegasus TL is light enough for even the weediest ten-stone weakling to carry around with a spring in their step.

As well as being light, the Pegasus also has an impressively long battery life of two hours six minutes. Our intensive power tests really put the battery under strain, so you can expect even more than this in most situations. The only exception being activities such as 3D gaming, which place a constant and unremitting strain on the battery.

ERGONOMICS AND DESIGN

The trade-off for having a laptop that's so light and small is that there's less space for vital components. The Pegasus TL's screen is just 12.1 inches from corner to corner. That's small by current standards. And you only get two USB ports - not many at all. We were also a bit surprised at how flexible the lid that protects the screen is. While we appreciate that Rock wouldn't want to add any unnecessary weight to an ultra-portable system, you really need a good, stiff cover to protect the screen from being flexed, bent, knocked or otherwise damaged.

And you'd want to take particularly care of this screen, as it's very, very nice. As well as having the same proportions as a widescreen television - perfect for watching DVDs - it's made of a substance that Rock calls 'X-glass'. This is a type of glass that isn't covered with the same kind of glare-reduction coating as normal TFT screens. This is good, because the coating has the effect of diffusing light that passes through it, reducing sharpness and making colours appear washed-out. This isn't so much of a problem with normal Windows applications, but DVD movies and games can look a bit dull and flat. Rock claims X-glass combats glare, but doesn't cause diffusion and, as a result, makes images much brighter and sharper. To see if it lived up to its claims, we tested the screen using the DVDs The Fast and the Furious and Die Another Day. The results were fantastic. Picture quality was pin-sharp, and colours were bright and vibrant.

The downside to this is that the screen is more reflective than a standard notebook screen. Not a problem if you're watching DVDs; even the most extreme viewing angles were fine. Nor will it be a problem in a normally lit room, like at home. But it could cause difficulties is in places that are brightly lit from many different angles, such as airport lounges and offices.

The keyboard and trackpad were both fine. Our only, very slight, misgiving is that the function key is where the control key would be on a normal keyboard. The control key is used in lots of Windows shortcuts, so this is a pain until you get used to it.

POWER AND PERFORMANCE

Like most ultra-portable notebooks, the Pegasus isn't built for power. It scored 78.25 points in our 2D benchmarks. That's more than enough power for any day-to-day computing - word processing, Web use, even photo-editing. Anything more demanding, such as video editing, will put the Pegasus under severe stress.