Battery life and thoughts
Battery lifeHere's where the Rock Xtreme XTR-3.2 is lacking. What doesn't help matters is the use of a 14.8v 4450mAh battery. Sounds impressive when written like that, but, for example, Dell's Inspiron 5100-series use a 14.8v 6450mAh battery. We can't see why Rock/Clevo can't match Dell's capacity. With a hungry desktop P4 3.2Ghz CPU and lots of ancillary components that aren't shy of registering on the wattage scale, battery life was always going to be one of the weak points.
Battery testing was undertaken with three scenarios. The first was the most intensive, with the laptop set to loop 3DMark 2001SE until it went into standby mode. The second was to play a full-screen DVD (Full Metal Jacket) with sound turned up the maximum permissible until battery failure. Lastly, and the most unscientific, was general laptop usage, consisting of web browsing, Macromedia HomeSite use, e-mail retrieval and word processing - basic PC usage. The screen was set to the default brightness and any other resident programs were terminated. Power attributes were set to Portable/Laptop. Wireless and Bluetooth functions were left enabled throughout.
Rock's Xtreme XTR-3.2 is a well-specified laptop that's positioned as a no-compromise performance machine. It looks the part, certainly, with an excellent paint finish, decent specification list and excellent connectivity options making it highly appealing on paper. What's not so appealing is its sheer bulk (4.1kg sans charger) and price. Pricing puts it at a touch over £1800 inc. VAT. For a couple of hundred pounds less one could opt for Time's Platina Athlon 64 laptop, replete with a Creative Audigy 2 NX external USB sound card, Sennheiser headphones, and a Wireless gamepad. It's also a pound lighter, much quieter in battery mode, and arrives with a multicard reader and 1GByte, albeit DDR333, of memory installed.
That's Rock's biggest problem with the Xtreme line. All laptops in the range are excellent in their own right, but fail to sparkle when bunched together with other machines at the same kind of retail price. Another obvious problem is with mobile battery life which, if we're being blunt, is shockingly bad. Small battery capacity and desktop-type CPUs don't help. AMD's Athlon 64 Mobile just seems to be a better power CPU currently. Specific to the review model, the choice of hard drive was also disappointing.
If Rock can position this exact specification at, say, £1499 including VAT and delivery we'd be more inclined to look upon it favourably. For £1800+ we'd really be looking at 1GByte DDR400 memory, Mobility Radeon 9700, no more than 3.6kg basic weight, and at least an UXGA (1600x1200) panel. Rock's Xtreme XTR-3.2 laptop is a meaty beast with a meatier price tag. There's better value to be found elsewhere, I'm afraid.
