If you're in the market for a new Vista notebook, Rock's rather mundane looking Pegasus T12 T7400 may well appeal.

Rock has sensibly opted for Vista Home Premium over the slightly cheaper, but far inferior Home Basic edition. It has also done a good job of supplying Vista with decent hardware to run off.

Sitting at the heart of the system is a fast Core 2 Duo T7400 running at 2.16GHz - this is second only to Intel's T7600 model. Combined with the 1GB of Ram required by Vista Home Premium, it powered the notebook to a score of 229 in Sysmark 2004 SE.

To keep costs down, Rock supplies it with Intel 945GM integrated graphics instead of a dedicated graphics card, so don't expect to use this notebook as a portable gaming machine. It's poor 3D performance is highlighted further by it returning a score of just 581 in 3Dmark05.

Where the Pegasus T12 T7400 really excels is with its battery life. In our Reader test it kept going for a mind-blowing eight hours 21 minutes - by far the best result we've seen. In the more realistic Productivity test it fell 15 minutes short of the eight-hour mark, which is another staggering result. Play DVDs constantly and it will last a little more than five hours.

However, this extended battery life is all thanks to the rather large 10,000mA battery that's included as standard. Not only is this fairly weighty (it pushes the notebook up to 3.1kg), but it also sticks out rather ungainly from the back of the chassis by 4cm.

In terms of build quality, this notebook might not be the prettiest, but it feels solid and should withstand the occasional knock. It's also great to type on, with well-spaced keys that don't make the annoying clacking sound usually heard on notebooks.

Other components include a 100GB hard drive, DVD writer, 802.11g Wifi and 4 USB2 sockets, but Rock couldn't find room for the likes of a card reader, Firewire or Bluetooth.

The notebook comes in at £999, which is a pretty good deal considering the high-spec components, large screen and Vista Home Premium operating system. Rock also offers a variety of upgrades.

You can double the memory to 2GB for £125, while corporate users might want to consider going for Vista Business (£50). Two hard drive alternatives are offered - a 160GB model will cost £85 more, while a smaller but faster 7,200rpm 100GB drive is a straight swap with the 120GB 5,400rpm drive that comes as standard.

As a Vista notebook, the Pegasus T12 T7400 serves well and it's powerful enough to cope with the demanding Aero effects. The powerful processor and battery life impressed us, but at more than 3kg we find it unlikely anyone would want to carry it around with them all day - regardless of how long the battery lasts.

If you want to read more about the new Windows Vista operating system, check out our full in-depth review and video walkthrough.

Also consider:
Hi-Grade Notino W5600
A sub-£500 notebook that doesn't show Vista in its best light

Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pi 1505
The sub-£500 Fujitsu will make light work of heavy tasks with its dual core processor

MSI Megabook M670
If you love watching movies on the move, this is the perfect sub-£500 laptop

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