Reviews / Pegasus 520 - Computer Shopper
» Computer Shopper gives 5 Star Rating

Rock·s Pegasus 520 has a glossy black lid with a swirling pinstripe pattern. Opening the lid reveals silver and black panels around the keyboard and screen. A full-size keyboard is flanked on either side by speaker grilles, below which is a large touch pad with light, responsive buttons and a handy fingerprint reader. Although the keyboard flexes slightly, the key action is light and comfortable for touch-typing. It·s the best keyboard of the three £1,000 laptops this month.

The 15.4in screen is also the best of the three, with bright, even colours and deep blacks. The glossy coating helps to bring out the best in colours, but attracts reflections. Above the screen is a 2-megapixel webcam that swivels through 180°, allowing you to record yourself or the scene in front of you.

The Pegasus 520 has a new Nvidia 9650M GT graphics card with 1GB of onboard memory. We had problems with the supplied drivers. New drivers fixed these problems, but reduced the Pegasus 520·s PCMark benchmark results and meant that it trailed behind the Novatech and MSI laptops. The 9650M was barely faster than the 9600M, as used by both Novatech·s and MSI·s laptops, but future driver versions could improve performance.

The Pegasus has five USB ports, one of which doubles as an eSATA port, as well as HDMI and FireWire ports. A large nine-cell battery, which protrudes from the rear of the laptop, lasted nearly four-and-a-half hours in our tests, the longest here. Even with this battery, the 520 weighs less than 3kg, so gaming on the move is possible. If you don·t need this much battery life, Rock can downgrade to a six-cell battery for a saving of £20. Another bonus is the three-year collect-and-return warranty, which eclipses every other warranty here.