Pegasus 670 review

Please look to the end of this article for the positive outcome of my moans. 

The Pegasus 670 is the latest laptop in a long line of well respected and quality products from Rock Direct. I pre-ordered mine in mid june with an expected dispatch date of w/b 9th July, but due to supplier delays and Rock’s own quality processes delivery took place on 27th July, not too long to wait but in our ‘now now now’ society it seemed like an eon.

So onto the review.

Out of the Box

I was going to prattle on about how well packaged the laptop is or isn’t but alas my other half opened it before I returned from work. The reason for this otherwise unforgivable act was to kick off the World of Warcaft installation, which tends to take several hours. I have it on good authority that the machine was safely and securely packed.

The beast within

  • P670 - T7700
  • Core2Duo 2.4ghz, 4mb cache, 800mhz
  • NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
  • 2 gig DDR2 800mhz
  • 160gig 7200rpm
  • 1 gig Turbo Memory

The Pegasus 670 is understated in every way, when i first sat down to it all I could think is `this is the anti-apple’, all black, and yet multimedia buttons placed around the keyboard which look a little embarrassed to be there, this laptop doesn’t want these spurious consumer buttons, it’s like putting a dress on a bulldog.

It’s a fairly large laptop and it’s hard to believe it’s only a 15″ screen, ports are along both sides of the base, all the usual subjects are present along with 4 usb ports. Although I am a wifi user I can imagine the placement of the network port could be annoying (it’s halfway along the left side of the base).

So all good so far, but! The Keyboard… it’s really naff, very flexible, not very sensitive, it seems like such an after-thought compared to the rest of the package. I imagine it will be fine once I am used to it, but right now, 12 hours into using this machine it’s really getting on my nerves and has crippled my word-per-minute.

(Ok, I have added some info at the end of the review to document Rock’s response to the keyboard problem, please read it)

Build Quality

Okay, lets get the bad out of the way first… Keyboard is rubbish, come on Rock, what the hell were you thinking? at the center of the keyboard i see a clear 5mm+ vertical travel on key press, I don’t mean th key itself but the rest of the keyboard, it’s very ’sprongie’. To be honest it really doesn’t look seated properly but having heard a few other users whinge about the keyboard I fear it is in fact fine. If I can’t adjust to it fairly quickly then it could mean a return.

On the whole the rest of the machine is solid the only flimsy thing that I have noticed is the screen opening catch but after a good fiddle with it it’s obvious it wont break easily it just moves about a bit.

Usability

Keyboard crap… we’ve said that right? ;)

Ignoring the actually build quality of the keyboard it is actually quite nice to use. There is a sensible amount of room to rest the wrists and the touch pad is a pretty simple affair but works well and seems to turn itself off when you are typing. I imagine the ‘Fn’ key to the left of the left hand ctrl key will annoy may people but you get used to it (I am from using my powerbook), the Pgup/Pgdn/home/end keys to the right of the ‘Return’ key are bloody annoying, but again i guess one just gets used to it.

The screen is just awesome, it’s bright and sharp and just seems immense ;)

Performance

The overall ‘feel’ of the laptop is quick, I mean really quick, even with vista installed.  Rock also give you a nice wallpaper that along with the strong community of rock fans and the personal attention, makes you feel very special to be using not just a cutting edge laptop, but a Rock laptop. (That is until you try to type something ;) )

Office Apps

Loading a spreadsheet of x,y took z seconds blah… (I will test this when i install MS office)

Gaming

World of warcraft, which is the only game I really play is perfect on this laptop. Full detail and all the bells produces 60fps even with another 40 players on screen all doing stuff. I have played it non stop this weekend (save sleeping) and the machine has not felt ‘hot’, but there is an understandable amount of hot air blowing from the vent. The game did crash once and the whole machine locked up, very odd, but that could be due to anything and I doubt it’s the hardware.

3dmark scores and other stats

Doing this in a few days.

Customer Service

Rock direct are a fairly modest but well respected UK company. I stumbled upon their forum whilst trying to research an alienware laptop I was considering. The quality of the community and the honest and frank feedback from the Rock staff very much impressed me and naturally the laptop specifications were top notch.

I pre-ordered the 670 mid-june and it was delivered about 1 month later, which amounted to being about 2 weeks late, this was due to supplier issues and I felt informed and in contact all the way.

Although I have not been there I gather rock has a showroom in (or near) Warwick, which is dead handy for times that really do benefit from face to face comms.

Conclusions

I am impressed with the laptop… My only gripe is the keyboard and I’ll see what other 670 users have to say and it may turn out that mine needs attention, or I just need to give myself time to adapt.

The 670 is very quick, stonking screen, fairly reasonable battery life and not at all bad value. I also suggest a Pakuma bag as they really are worth the money and it’s a perfect fit.

Links

I will update this review with photos and other stuff soon, keep a look out.

Keyboard issues… Update!

I decided to return the 670 after finding the keyboard to be totally unusable.  A few other users had complained of similar issues in the forums and the rock support staff did not hesitate is arranging for the return (at their expense).

It was ultimately decided that the keyboards of the first batch were faulty and I was offered a replacement without question, however i decided to upgrade to the xtreme 770.  To cut a long story short, suppliers let Rock down and the wait for the 770 was too much considering my move to Sweden and I evetually cancelled.

 Absolutely none of this experience was bad, despite how it sounds.  Sure i felt a little frustrated, but Rocki are simply victims of the market place, they are last in line for supplies but comke first for customer attention and quality… ironic isn’t it.

 I will shop with Rock again in the future, you just can’t get customer service like theirs anywhere else.