Hope you weren't really counting on getting yourself one of those Pegasus 210s. In a sudden announcement made today, Dominic Wong and David Langton of Deloitte & Touche LLP were appointed as Joint Administrators of Rock Group Plc. In layman's terms, that means those fellows will be attempting to achieve a sale of the now-defunct company. Reportedly, the failure of Rock is "partly attributed to the cash flow difficulties faced as a result of stock misappropriation by a former employee," though further details were omitted. As it stands, the admins are currently negotiating with potential suitors in order to place the outfit in more capable hands, but there is still a possibility that no one will bite. For more information on how all of this could affect you (you know, things like warranties and whatnot), check out the full release in the read link below. 'Tis a sad day folks -- Rock is dead (at least for the moment).

[Thanks, Peter]

It's no secret that 2008 is shaping up as a stellar year for ultraportables, and now even perennial clunker manufacturer Rock is getting in on the action. The new Pegasus 210 is built on Intel's UMPC internals, with a 800MHz A110 processor doing the "heavy" lifting. The laptop sports 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth and optional HSDPA connectivity, along with a 80GB 1.8-inch HDD, 1GB of RAM, a 4-in-1 card reader and a PCMCIA slot. There's no disc drive, but there is a full complement of ports on the 2.2 pound laptop. You can pick one up for a rather palatable £799 in the UK (about $1,582 US).

[Via BIOS]

Although Rock began offering a Blu-ray option on its pricey gaming rigs soon after Toshiba threw in the HD DVD towel, prospective buyers were forced to specifically inquire in order to get one. Now, however, the company has finally bit the bullet and began offering internal BD drives as an option on its gamut of gaming laptops. Reportedly, Rock's CEO Nick Boardman proclaimed that he was "disappointed that HD DVD didn't make it," but noted that even if you have a machine on order right now, you can "stick with HD DVD, downgrade to DVD-RW or upgrade to Blu-ray" sans issue. Interestingly, the company is still offering up HD DVD drives as "standard," but we suppose it has to move that suddenly worthless inventory somehow, eh?

[Via Tech Digest]

While many stores are slashing down HD DVD player prices as much as management will allow, it seems that one diehard supporter is casting a blind eye to the whole format war meltdown. Rock -- which tooted its own horn after making HD DVD standard on many of its laptops -- hasn't changed its approach one iota. Even now, the firm is still offering up internal HD DVD drives (and writers) in a plethora of its machines, and curiously enough, there's not even an option to select a Blu-ray or combo player. C'mon Rock, we know you're just trying to clear out inventory, but at least give prospective buyers a choice in the matter, would ya?

Update: Looks like a DVD-RW "downgrade" option is currently available for those that inquire, and Blu-ray options should be added in due time. Thanks, Felix!

Read - Pegasus 670
Read - Xtreme 770
Read - Xtreme SL8
Read - Xtreme SL Pro

Merely two days after Dell added NVIDIA's GeForce 8800M GTX to its beastly M1730, it seems that Rock is looking to up the graphical ante as well. Reportedly, the firm is gearing up to unleash the (likely rebadged) Xtreme XL8, which will house an Intel X6800 quad-core processor, a delightful pair of NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTXs, up to 1TB of storage space and a 17-inch 1,920 x 1,200 resolution panel to boot. Furthermore, you'll find an Ethernet jack, Draft-N wireless card, an obligatory (no, really) HD DVD drive and a presumably laughable battery life. Waiting for the sting? Try £2,500 ($4,976) to £3,000 ($5,971), with pre-orders going live later this month.

In a move that sounds an awful lot more comical than it actually is, ROK Entertainment has acquired a majority shareholding in Rock, the laptop manufacturer. The former stone specializes in providing mobile content / entertainment, and apparently, it's hoping to share "expertise in IPTV, place shifting, mobile internet and mobile entertainment platforms" with the latter. Essentially, ROK sees convergence between laptops and mobile technologies as imminent, and while specifics of the agreement weren't really detailed, we're already getting anxious to start sidetalkin' on our next Rock machine.

Although Toshiba has been quite a player in bringing HD DVD to more and more laptops, Rock is now boasting that it is the first company to "feature HD DVD as standard" on lappies. Granted, it's only standard on select machines, but at least it's a start. The firm's Pegasus 670 features the obligatory HD DVD reading / DVD writing drive along with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 processor, a 15.4-inch WSXGA panel, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, NVIDIA's 512MB GeForce 8600M GT graphics card, WiFi, gigabit Ethernet, and Windows Vista. The higher-end Xtreme 770 is available with most of the same specs, save for the 512MB GeForce 8700M GT, 17-inch WSXGA+ display and a number of additional ports. An HD DVD-equipped Rock laptop can be yours for as low as £999 ($2,037), but if your credit card is up for some pain, you can ratchet that figure way on up.

[Via Stuff]
Read - Pegasus 670
Read - Xtreme 770

For fans of Jack and Meg, it's probably a long-standing dream of yours to purchase the Icky Thump album on limited edition thumb drives complete with cartoon renditions of the rockers, but even if it that understandably bizarre scenario never actually crossed your mind, you can still make it a reality. Apparently, the White Stripes are offering up their latest album on two fairly rare USB drives, each sporting 512MB of internal space, an artistic rendition of one of the band mates, and thirteen rockin' tracks in Apple Lossless format. Only 3,333 of each will be created, and while just one will run you a whopping $57.50, you may as well grab the duo for a discounted $99. Of course, we're still not entirely certain if these things are actually licensed by the band, but it's safe to assume that a seven nation army of fans will have these bought up before the legal teams can even get their case together.

[Via BoingBoing]

With the way CompAmerica goes around bragging about the superiority of its laptops, you'd think that the company was some high end, boutique gaming manufacturer -- instead of one of the many companies simply offering rebadge after rebadge. Just like other 'bigger than life' players such as Eurocom and Rock, ol' CA makes most of its loot selling machines originally available from Clevo, so it should be no surprise that its latest 'most powerful laptop on Earth' -- the 17-inch Orca Extreme -- is really just that D900C we saw last month. You know, Core 2 Extreme CPU, dual GeForce 7950 GTX cards in SLI, up to 4GB of RAM, and of course those three hard drives that can offer up to 600GB of storage in RAID 0. This whale of a laptop can be yours immediately -- that is, if you don't already own one of its doppelgangers -- starting right around $2,600.

[Via laptoping]

"Xtreme" laptop OEM Rock has just announced its upcoming Meivo all-in-one PC, a Vista-powered 22-inch monster that features Core 2 Duo processors and several internal tuner options. Coming at the end of April for an even £1,000, Meivo is built around a 1,680 x 1,050 panel sporting side-mounted memory card slots and USB ports, with WiFi, Bluetooth, 7.1 output, and a pair of drive bays rounding out the specs. As far as tuners go, you get your choice of analog, digital, or hybrid -- all MXM compliant for easy expansion and upgrades. Probably not the best machine for power computing, but for watching the full season of Jericho so far on CBS Innertube from bed, this would make a good choice.

Read - Press release
Read - "Teaser" site
[Via Shiny Shiny]

If you like your lappies like your music, then Rock's latest addition to its Pegasus series is sure to please. Hot on the heels of its mammoth-sized Xtreme SL Pro comes the much more portable 13.3-inch Pegasus 335, which is marketed as a mobile entertainment center and comes bundled with a USB DVB-T TV tuner to capture those sparkling British OTA broadcasts. Beneath the hood lies your choice of Intel's T5600/T7200/T7400 Core 2 Duo processor, up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM, up to 160GB SATA hard drive, an 8x dual-layer DVD burner, built-in 802.11a/b/g, a 4-in-1 flash card reader, and a WXGA display. Among the assortment of ports is 4-pin FireWire, gigabit Ethernet, 56k modem, S-Video out, audio in / out, PCMCIA, VGA, and a trio of USB 2.0 connectors to boot. Including a three-year warranty, prices range from £722.55 ($1,404) to about as much as your credit card can stand, and is available now for holiday delivery.

[Via RegHardware]

Not everyone feels comfortable using a mouse made out of modern materials like plastic or, y'know, mammoth skin. Fortunately for office cavemen everywhere, a Russian designer called Neko has filled this market niche by making a mouse out of stone -- or, more likely, made a plastic mouse with polished stones stuck on top. The beige scroll wheel and cable ruin the appeal slightly, although that wouldn't stop us from freaking out the Engadget interns by turning up to work with what appears to be a hunk of rock.

[Via MAKE]

If you're the kind of person who likes their gizmos to the Xtreme, then you're sure to love Rock's new Xtreme SL Pro. Following in the same 20-inch vein as Acer's Aspire 9800 and Dell's XPS M2010, this gargantuan machine packs specs most commonly found in a full-fledged desktop. Powered by a 2.0GHz AMD Turion X2 TL-60 processor, the SL Pro also packs twin NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX 512MB graphics cards, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a pair of 100GB 7200RPM SATA drives, dual-layer DVD burner, WSXGA+ display, 5.1 surround sound output, 1.3-megapixel webcam, and a 4-in-1 flash card reader. Additionally, you'll find built-in WiFi / Bluetooth connectivity, a DVI output, FireWire, and five USB 2.0 ports. Aside from weighing 15.2 pounds, having a presumed 28.4 (at best) minutes of battery life, and being nearly two inches thick, this prodigious laptop will set you back at least £2,499 ($4,720) depending on options -- but hey, it'll sure be easier to snag than that other crimson-clad eXtreme toy this holiday season.

[Via Pocket-Lint]

UK rebadger PC manufacturer Rock has a blazing new 17-inch laptop in store for British gamers, the Core Duo-powered Xtreme CTX T2700. As its name suggests, this model sports a T2700 CPU running at 2.33GHz, along with 1GB of 667MHz DDR2 RAM, a zippy 7,200RPM 100GB hard drive, 8x dual-layer DVD burner, and on the connectivity tip, the always-popular Bluetooth and three flavor WiFi. Graphics on this model also promise to impress, with a 512MB-equipped GeForce Go 7900 GTX card from nVIDIA handling the heavy lifting for the 1920 x 1200 WUXGA display. As you'd expect, a configuration like this doesn't come cheap, and will cost around $3,200 when it drops in the next few days.

Yo, Rock just dropped two new low-to-mid range gamer laptops into the mix with their Pegasus 660 and Quaddra TX2 (pictured left-to-right, we think). The 6.8-pound Pegasus model brings a 15.4-inch, 1280 x 768 display, Intel Core Duo, nVidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics with 256MB onboard memory, 120GB disk, 2GB RAM, and even a silent mode which kills the fan and throttles back the CPU to a cool runnin' 1GHz. Not big enough, Jack? Then try on the Quaddra TX2 which packs in a 17-inch, 1680 x 1050 pixel, X-Glass anti-reflective screen, AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core proc, Bluetooth, WiFi, 1.3 megapixel cam, and the same GeForce Go 7600 graphics card, disk and RAM squeezed into a 7.7-pound, 1.4-inch thick slab. The Pegasus 660 should pull £1,060/$1,924 while the TX2 will demand just a bit more at £1,175/$2,133. Both should begin shipping in the next few weeks.

[Via Stuff]