Rock Xtreme 780 Q9000

More and more households are now using laptop PCs rather than desktops as the main computer in the house and so there's a need for laptops that are as powerful as their desktop cousins, or more so, especially those designed for games players.

The Rock Xtreme 780 Q9000 is a games players' computer, but although it's technically portable its size and bulk mean that it's unlikely ever to leave the house once it arrives.

The laptop has a 17in widescreen display and weighs a hefty 3.8kg. Add to this an external power adapter that weighs a further kilogram and users may struggle to take it any further than from bedroom to living room. It's bulky, too, and not what we would call aesthetically pleasing (although it will no doubt appeal to some). Its black case is adorned with a huge sliver X mark that spans the front of the case and makes it look more 1980s than 2000s.

However, there are some definite advantages to the computer's size, notably the large keyboard, which allows the keys to be nicely spaced out unlike on smaller laptops. The keys had a springy action, too, meaning users don't have to push on them with lots of force. Although the mouse trackpad is larger than average we were disappointed with it: the surface was rough, making it hard to glide over with a finger.

The 17in screen was very impressive – its clarity was good, and colours were bright. This makes it good for gamers, of course, as does the graphics card, an Nvidia Geforce 9800M GTS with 512MB of its own memory. The Q9000 in the name refers to the impressively fast Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000 quad-core processor, which is backed up with 2GB of memory.

Other models are available with even faster processors, better graphics and more memory, but of course these all add to the cost. This model, though, is certainly fast enough for home and office tasks, video editing, movie watching and recent games. In our lab tests, the Xtreme 780 performed very impressively with recent games at high quality levels.

Unfortunately, that processing power came with its own problems: the computer's fans, which keep it cool, ran constantly while we were using it and were very loud. This was distracting when we were trying to watch a film or do some work and not even the sound from the built-in speakers could drown this out. In all we were unimpressed with the sound quality, but most gamers will be using headphones or a set of external speakers to get the best out of it. It can be connected to external monitors or flat-panel televisions through DVI or HDMI connections.

The Rock Xtreme 780 Q9000 comes with the Vista Home Premium operating system and includes Microsoft Works should you need to use it for work as well as play. There is a 250GB hard disk for storing files music and films and installing those games, as well as four USB ports, a memory card reader, webcam, DVD reader/writer and Cyberlink PowerDVD software. There's a three-year collect-and-return warranty.

In all, the Rock Xtreme 780 is an impressive gaming computer, and one that will easily crunch through other intensive tasks such as video editing, but £1,700 is a lot of money to ask when similarly powerful desktop computers are much cheaper.