In an industry littered with the forgotten wreckage of daft ideas, Intel's Centrino initiative stands out as a model of common sense. Yes, of course it will mean lots more money for Intel, but Centrino is more than just another marketing dodge.

Properly integrated wireless networking, significantly improved power management and battery life, and real increases in raw processing power are, after all, not things to be sniffed at. No surprise then that manufacturers the world over have taken up Centrino with enthusiasm. This includes UK players like Rock Direct, which has just added a selection of Centrino models to its range.

You get a choice of processor speeds from the slowest 1.3GHz to the current 1.6GHz ceiling for the new Pentium-M mobile CPU which lies at the heart of the Centrino specification. The review system was based on a 1.5GHz processor backed by 512MB of PC2100 DDR SDRAM and a 40GB hard disk, so you're looking at a solid platform for the business user.

Pentium-M processors run much cooler than previous mobile Pentiums, so Centrino notebooks tend to be nice and slim. The Pegasus CT is no exception, measuring just 31mm at its thickest (lid closed), and less at the front. This helps keep the weight down to a manageable 2.7kg (2.95kg including the power supply), lending plausibility to the positioning of the Pegasus as a tool for the travelling business user.

If you like to watch a film while you're doing your business travelling, you might find the Pegasus CT's external play controls and combo DVD/CD-RW drive handy. The controls run along the front edge of the case, and can be toggled between CD/DVD playback and five programmable shortcuts, which is a clever touch. The QSI combo drive is modular and hot-swappable, and delivers 24x CD play, 8x DVD play, a fast 24x CD-R and respectable CD-RW. As is now increasingly common, there is no floppy drive, but if you want one, Rock Direct sells an external USB unit for £49.

There's no parallel, serial or PS/2 ports, with primary I/O left to three USB connectors, the integrated 56K modem and 10/100 Base-TX LAN adaptor, and the Intel 802.11b wireless LAN. This last is on a mini-PCI card, as it should be, so it can be upgraded when faster, dual-band WLAN standards are ratified later this year.

There's also no expansion bus, but Rock Direct offers a USB port replicator which has a LAN jack, parallel, serial and PS/2 ports on it, so you could use the Pegasus CT as a fuss-free desktop replacement.

The Pegasus CT has another unusual and potentially useful feature in the form of its 4-in-1 flash card slot. This can read Memory Stick, Smart Media, Secure Digital and Multi Media Card formats, and may be a further incentive to use the notebook for non-business purposes.

In use, the Pegasus CT is respectably fast, although we noticed that the integrated graphics forming part of the i855GM motherboard chipset were lacklustre when it came to 3D work. Clearly Intel envisions the i885GM as primarily a business platform chipset, and in this light it manages perfectly well, although it's far from pushing the envelope of 2D performance either.

The screen is reasonably bright, and its native XGA resolution is easily readable on the panel's 14-inch diagonal. Super-high resolution notebook screens are all very well, but the designers sometimes seem to lose track of the fact that it's no good if everything's so small you can barely make it out.

There's nothing particularly distinguishing about the keyboard, which simply does its job adequately, but we did like the horizontal/vertical scroll button below the touch pad. Notebooks have been needing a feature like this for years.

Centrino has moved the goalposts somewhat when it comes to battery life, which is slightly to the Pegasus CT's disadvantage. Until recently, running times close to 3.5 hours, of which is what this notebook is capable, were considered fairly good, but Centrino has raised expectations to 4 or even 5 hours, leaving the Pegasus CT lagging behind.

It makes up some ground when it comes to the warranty end of things though, since it is backed by a 3 year, collect and return, parts and labour warranty, which is more than you get with much of the competition.

We'd have liked to see a more robust lid, preferably made of alloy not plastic, as this is key to protecting the screen during transport, but otherwise the Pegasus CT is reasonably well made and an undeniably nice looking machine. It could, perhaps, do with being about £150 or so cheaper, based on the pricing of some of its competitors, but on the whole, as a first outing for a new technology, it stands up fairly well.

The Rock Direct Pegasus CT is visually appealing and light enough for the business traveller, with the benefit of a built-in 4-in-1 flash card reader on top of Centrino wireless networking. There are things that could be improved, but no fatal flaws, and the generous warranty is a definite point in its favour.