Reviews / Xtreme SL Pro - Computer Active
» 4/5 stars

An impressive notebook for video, games, and more…

Let’s get one thing straight from the start- this is no portable computer. Measuring almost half a metre wide, 35cm deep and weighing just under 7kg, using it on a lap isn’t recommended.

That said, the Xtreme SL-Pro TL-60 is a very impressive desktop replacement. Its 20in screen, multiformat DVD-writer and full-sized keyboard are a few of the less exciting things about it.

The TL60 uses a dual-core AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 processor, running at 2GHz, 1GB of fast memory, twin 512Mb nVidia GeForce Go 7950GTX graphics card and a pair of 100Gb hard disks.

This string of specifications translates to a very fast notebook computer that can run at least two processes at once. The twin graphics cards (rare in a notebook) can share the load of a heavy weight 3D game, while a grand total of 200GB of storage space means lots of room for today’s growing amount of multimedia.

Video (for emailing and web-chat) can be taken with the 1.3-megapixel camera set into the top edge of its lid and a microphone built into the bottom edge. The 20in widescreen display has a maximum resolution of 1,680 by 1,050 pixels and is sharp and bright. There’s plenty of room for applications running side by side.

With such a big chassis to house the cinema-style screen, full-size keyboard and impressive components, the edges are home to all kinds of connections. Five UBS2 sockets are joined by a firewire, a PC Card slot and a single memory card slot that can take SD/MMC and Sony’s Memorycard formats. Both Wifi and Bluetooth wireless connections are supported and there’s a socket for a TV aerial, though no TV tuner is installed as standard.

In our benchmarks tests the Rock Xtreme SL Pro-TL60 outperformed several faster Intel Core 2 notebook computers with more system memory. It played the latest polygon-hungry 3D games very well and, in this respect, was comparable to a desktop computer with a powerful graphics card. There’s some noise from the internal cooling fans, but this is likely to be swamped by the game soundtrack. Sound, produced by two small speaker behind the keyboard, has a good volume range, but is very bass-light.

Bundled software includes a full copy of Works 8.5 – not the suite (so no Word) – Roxio Creator 7 and Bullguard Anti-Virus, which seems determined to make its presence felt at every opportunity.

Rock offer a generous three-year collect and return warranty on the Xtreme SL _pro, which is not so much a notebook but an exceptionally capable desktop replacement. At £2,500, so it should be.

The Rock Xtreme SL-Pro TL60 is a top-of-the-range notebook computer with a top-of-the-range price tag to match


Simon Williams