darlodge

My brother bought a Rock Direct XCTX-T2700 a few weeks ago despite my advice to get the DELL XPS and he is having a few "issues" with it.

Has anyone ever used one? For £1800 I'm very unimpressed, it judders when playing games (BF2, AEIII, Sims). It's very very slow at loading into Windows, My 1.6GHz Mobile Dell loads quicker.

I can't download the latest Drivers direct from Nvidia as the software does not recognise the 7900GTX card installed. I have to use the drivers on the original drivers CD that came with the laptop. I even tried the beta Nvidia drivers, same problem.

He is calling them today as he has a few other issues as well, like supplying him with the Student and Teacher edition of Office 2003 instead of the full edition. Is that legal, he is not a Student or a Teacher

Darren

David_Wallis

Youve just gone down in my estimations! Id take rock over dell.

David

darlodge

The only reason I suggested the Dell over the Rock laptop is because I've used an XPS and it worked great. I'd never even heard of Rock until he asked me about them.

Have you used a Rock laptop David? The built quality and screen are amazing. There are no plasticy bits, all the catches line-up and no rattling bits like a Dell I admit, however the performance, both in and out of games (which is sole reason why he bought it) is terrible.

Darren

WRX_Dazza

I thought these were top flight stuff???

I tend to stick with mainstream Tosh's, Dell's, Vaio's, and HP for driver support, warranty and spares down the line!!!

wish i had £1800 worth of laptop !!! i got an old Dell D500 (L)atitude
but it does everything i need for work!!! (age of empires mainly!!!)

darlodge

Dazza,

I think they are, as I said the build quality is the best I've ever seen on a laptop and the screen is tack sharp.

It might be a quality control issue I'm not sure, bit for £1800 its not what I'd expect.

Darren

Iain Young

I'd take Dell over rock for reliability. I know of someone who has had no end of trouble with his Rock, but my XPS has been completely solid since day one. It's the best laptop I've had / tried so far, (and I've been through a few)...

The nvidia drivers from their website will likely not work. Although it's the 7900 chipset, it's integrated onto the motherboard differently to a normal pc card, and so requires custom drivers. These are usually only available from the manufacturer of the laptop and so you have to wait for them to release a new version...

Iain Young

No it's not legal. Rock could get into trouble for doing that...

David_Wallis

to be fair the dell laptops I have used are pretty good, I have used rock and it was it was a while ago, and I had to give it back when I resigned

Dont get me started on my HP laptop, having said that I didnt build it so I will rebuild it before i replace it!

And dont get me started on why I hate widesreen laptops!!

David

Iain Young

Why's that? I wouldn't use anything else now. The extra desktop space is very useful

David_Wallis

I just really cant stand them, I suppose its what your used to.. I need a lot wider to make use.. I suppose its just that most laptops seem to be marketed as DVD players these days..

David

Iain Young

When programming, it comes in very handy. Means I can have more windows open side by side / less overlap etc. I wouldn't go back to a normal screen now from choice...