rock Xtreme 770 X9000-8800

Extras, Extras!

Since the rock X770 is only really available from the official rock store, there’s obviously going to be various accessories and so forth which you can have lumped in with the laptop to help beef it up in any areas you feel are lacking.

The model we’ve been looking at is the vanilla version of the X770 X9000/8800 and we think the performance is more than enough – but bit-tech readers are famously restless when it comes to system specs, so having the chance to upgrade or downgrade as you wish is always a good thing.

Not everything can be switched around – the CPU, GPU and screen for example are fixed in place and there’s no option to remove so much as the rock logo from the lid.

Other areas of the hardware are better represented though. The hard drive and can be downgraded from a 200GB 7,200RPM SATA to a 100GB 5,400RPM drive (though doing so won’t win you any savings) or upgraded to a 250GB 5,400RPM variant for an extra £60.

The fact that the Xtreme 770 comes with a HD DVD is, as we mentioned before, a little unusual and the fact that rock adds one in as standard is probably indicative of them trying to offload stock for the now-dead format. Still, if you’re willing to customise then you can save yourself £35 by opting for a standard 8x DVD-RW, or even level up to a Blu-ray ROM and DVD writer for an extra £100.


Personally, we don’t think the upgrade to Blu-ray is really worth it at this time – the battery life of the Xtreme 770 means that you can’t even watch a full DVD without losing power and reading high-def discs will only shorten that time span. The screen is also very glossy – that isn’t so much a problem for gaming when you’re sat still for long periods, but it’ll prove a pain when you have a more than one person sitting back to watch a film.

Software-wise, you can choose between a number of different versions of Vista, going all the way up to Vista Ultimate 64-bit for an extra £95, or you can choose to go for XP Pro if you prefer. Opting for XP may be the quickest way to increase performance – but be warned you’ll miss out on any DirectX 10 gaming if you do so. Switching from the default Vista Home Premium to XP Pro will also set you back an extra £20, which may seem a little strange at first but remember that you’re going from a Home version to a Professional version (had this been Home Premium to XP Home, charging more would be a cardinal sin).

The Xtreme 770 takes just over a minute to boot up fully, which is longer than we’d like. One of the quickest ways to shorten this time is to opt-out of any of the extra software bundled on the machine – namely Roxio and Bullguard. This is an option open to customers, but unfortunately it won’t save you a penny.

There are some tempting options for those who want to upgrade the PC though – the fact that you can choose the nationality of your keyboard is one we especially like, though if you want a foreign one you’ll have to pay the extra £20. However, one thing we would have preferred would be improved warranties. You can take a 30 day dead pixel guarantee for an extra £25, but that’s about it – otherwise you’re stuck with the standard three year pan-European Insurance Backed Collect and Return warranty. That in itself is a pretty good warranty term, but we always prefer an option to change something if we can.

Conclusions

Honestly, my feelings about the rock Xtreme 770 are a bit mixed. On the one hand, the Xtreme 770 offers very good gaming performance, application performance and comes with some nice extras and a good warranty. Even the bag that comes bundled with the laptop is nice, though the laptop itself is quite heavy—but that’s to be expected.

On the other hand though, the battery life won’t let you even get through one two hour film and I still feel that the concept of a gaming laptop is one that hasn’t been explored properly yet. Just because it doesn’t have a separate monitor, keyboard and speakers doesn’t mean that this 17-inch beast suddenly becomes portable!

In the end, for me, it’s the gaming performance and overall feel of the Xtreme 770 that makes this laptop a winner – this is a machine which feels good to use and some obvious care and attention has obviously gone into the design. rock has even spaced out the USB ports so you can fit multiple devices in without making it a squeeze. The laptop as a whole feels good to use and the gaming performance, while maybe not as good as we had hoped, is more than enough for modern gaming.

It may be expensive and many bit-tech readers may guffaw and pledge continued, undying loyalty to their desktop machines, but the reality is that the rock Xtreme 770 is a very tempting piece of kit and more than capable of any task you might care to throw at it.

• Build Quality
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

What do these scores mean?

Update:
Since writing this review, Rock has announced that it has gone into administration - a stark change from the rosy outlook we were given before starting this review.