DIMOSOL's Mobile Technology Fun Blog

Dell's D820. One of the Best Just keeps Getting Better

Dell Latitude D820

With the release of the Latitude D820 Dell gave us an impressive makeover from it’s predecessor the D810. The Latitude D820 has much more “punch” than its prior version. With a brilliant 15.4-inch widescreen and other cutting-edge features it offers excellent performance (the D820 is about 30% faster than the D810). Indeed its one of the fastest Core Duo machines in the market. For those traveling users, the above average battery life ensures longer hours of work. The Bottom Line: The Dell Latitude D820 is an excellent accessory for businesses professionals looking for a powerful, well-rounded portable system suitable for the road or office.

Targeted at the business market, Dell’s Latitude laptops feature top of the line parts that are always best for most business purposes. This model (like Dell’s entire Latitude line) was deliberately designed in a manner to simplify any maintenance issues that might arise and perform exceptionally well with anything the corporate user might throw at it.

Processor & Graphics Performance
Featuring a 1.83GHz Core Duo processor the D820 is truly fast. The Core Duo has a 667 MHz front side bus, which helps to maximize the performance. If you enjoy speed then The DDR2 SDRAM memory (running at 667 MHz) will be another eye opener. Don’t blink or you might miss something.

This laptop responded quite well to all user inputs (things load quickly). In my testing this system proved to be very reliable with NO instances of lockup, freeze, hang or BSOD.

Design: The Look and Feel

One of Dell’s very welcomed “upgrades” is they made the Latitude D820 a more portable (light weight as well as a slim) unit, unlike the D810 which was almost a desktop replacement. A sleek and slim model, the D820 is 7.6mm thinner than D810 with overall dimensions of 360.6 x 261.6 x 35.6 mm. The screen of D820 is fixed to the base with sturdy steel hinges and the entire frame consists of strong magnesium alloy, enhancing the style as well as structure at the same time.

With a smooth and easy-to-work keyboard, the Latitude D820 offers one of the best laptop keyboard designs in the business (very easy on the hands). Mouse options include a pointing stick and a touch pad both having individual sets of mouse buttons.

Multimedia
With an ultrafine 1900x1200 native resolution, the 15.4” D820 screen renders graphics perfectly. One doesn’t work all the time, and with this screen size (and resolution) watching DVDs are very enjoyable.

It also offers the workstation version of NVIDIA's GeForce 7400 graphics solution. If you’re looking for an extraordinary game performance don’t look here. However, the D820 has received 3DMark06 benchmark and 670 3DMarks.

I have to admit that the performances of the speakers are average. Located on either side of the unit. The sound didn’t quite knock me over. Three buttons (mute, volume up and volume down) located on the side made volume adjustment quite easy.

Can Anyone Say Input / Output?
Although not in excess, the Latitude D820 has enough ports, slots and jacks to manage almost any requirement. To start with there are four USB 2.0 ports (one of these being a half power jack and half USB port, which allows you to run external peripherals (i.e. an external hard drive). There are the typical headphone and microphone jacks, as well as separate slots for Smart Cards, ExpressCards, and Type II PC Cards. One really cool addition to the D820is the four-pin FireWire not found with the D810 is the latest addition.

This model is not a consumer-oriented laptop in. It lacks good multimedia features such as S/PDIF audio, S-Video, and media card-reader, but that’s just me looking for something to gripe about. It is designed for business professional and not the online gamer.

Communication
One outstanding feature of the Latitude D820 is it’s wireless networking capabilities. It has a switch on its left edge that functions like a Wi-Fi finder. On sliding the switch to the right, the built-in 802.11 wireless cards automatically starts searching for the available network. The LED status gets illuminated automatically indicating the presence of networks. Whether the system is on or off, the feature works; it is quite handy for those who would like to save time on boot up. And of course there are the almost outdated 56Kbps modem and built-in Gigabit Ethernet jack. Rest assured when you’re on the road you’ll be connected.

In Summary
The Latitude D820 is a great laptop selection for business professionals (and students). With it’s 15.4" wide screen one would think that it would not be easy to carry on around the world. However, it can be used very comfortably on a plane or on your lap without worrying about knocking over your soda or bag of peanuts. It definitely tops in productivity and flexibility. For the form factor, there exists a better balance between the portability and build in quality than the Latitude D820. Overall, this system can be an effective notebook for those needing to perform serious jobs effectively.

Dell Latitude D820 Widescreen Laptop

Dell Latitude D820 Widescreen Laptop QUICK review

Are you looking for a great all-purpose laptop? Then Check out Dell's Latitude d820. Great specs, super fast, HUGE 15.4" screen. Perfect for students and those business traveler's who want the luxury of a giant screen. With installed WIFI and Windows XP you'll be good to go.

Here's the sales' pitch....... Take advantage of the $100 discount that we are offering off the price of this powerful affordable laptop. We are offering a 90 day warranty and plenty of tech support (if needed)

Dell Latitude D820 Widescreen Laptop

See Ya, Anthony

Super Portable Laptop

Need a good PORTABLE laptop at a great price? Let me introduce you to the Dell Latitude D400.

It weighs a mere 4 pounds, and can almost fit into your pocket. The optical drive (CD, DVD, etc) is external and the screen size is 12." The processor is a super fast Intel Centrino which runs cool and doesn't use save battery life

This model is my new "when I gotta go out of town for business and still need to carry a computer" laptop.

check out the Dell Latitude D400 super portable laptop here

See Ya, Anthony

Dell Latitude D600

This is the first of a series of reviews that I am posting on the laptops that we sell. Why am I doing a review on a laptop that is a few years old you ask? Since we sell refurbished laptops (i.e. laptops that are a few years old, I felt it would be nice (and hopefully helpful) to provide a review of the laptop (s) you are shopping for.

Latitude D600

The D600 model was one of Dell's greatest business class laptops. Durable, easily upgradable and VERY easy to fix and get replacement parts for should the need arise made it a standard on many desks and conference tables, in brief cases, laptop bags, hotel rooms worldwide for many years.

DESIGN (or Redesign)
When Dell redesigned their business line they listened to those of us who, for years, had been using it's predecessor (remember the c640?) and made changes that worked for all of us. The silver D600 is a smaller, sleeker version of the gray C600, The chassis was designed using aluminum, magnesium alloy and steel, to make the D600 Latitudes lighter and thinner than previous models. The end product measures in at 1.2 by 12.4 by 10.1 inches and weighs an easy-to-tote 5.3 pounds.

POWER AND PERFORMANCE
Pentium M Mobile processor 1.3 Ghz - 2.0 Ghz Using Intel's 855PM chipset and standard 256 266 Mhz (PC2100) DDR memory more than enough to handle most of today's business application and tasks.

A PLETHORA OF OPTIONS, CHOICES AND UPGRADES
One of the things I like most about Dell is they give the buyer plenty of choices and upgrade options to choose from. Optical Drives included: Cd, CD-RW, DVD, DVD/CDRW Combo, DVD-RW. Hard drives came in 20GB - 60 GB flavors (but can certainly hold up to 120 GB), and the all-important RAM choices ranged between 256MB and 1.0 GB (with a maximum capacity of 2 GB). One would find it a challenge not to be able to spec out your laptop and keep within your boss' budget.

GRAPHICS
One feature Dell didn't hold back on was the graphics card that it put into the D600. Powered by a 32MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 chip the output drives a 14.1-inch SXGA+ screen which has a native resolution of 1,400 x 1,050 pixels. The result, a nice 14.1" Clear LCD, which was easy on the eyes BUT also provided enough power to run most games available at that time.

CONNECTIVITY
Dell offered a wide range of connectivity options for those road warriors that this laptop was designed for. All models came with an internal 56K bps Modem, and an integrated Gigabit Ethernet card (10/100/1000Mbps). Wireless options were aplenty. Choices included the Intel Pro Wireless PCI card (Centrino) for one of Dell's own TrueMobile solutions, either the 1300 with 802.11b/g or the 1400 which supports 802.11a, b and g. The choice of adding an internal BlueTooth card was also available.

ONE COOL FEATURE: The Multibay
The multibay came standard with whatever optical drive (CD, DVD, etc.) you chose installed in it. However, that was not the end of it (It is called a multibay). The bay was designed for you to add options to your laptop to make your life on the road MUCH EASIER. Options like another battery, an extra hard drive or even a floppy (remember those?). Simply pop out your DVD, pop in the extra hard drive that had your back up on it and you were "good-to-go) no reboot needed. How cool is that?

INPUTS, OUTPUTS, OTHER ODDS-AND-ENDS
The d600 came outfitted with all the standard ports, slots and jacks that all business applications required. On the back: 2 USB 2.0 jacks, S-Video-out, modem, Ethernet, parallel, VGA, and serial ports. On the left: Headphone and microphone jacks, an IrDA port, and one Type II PC Card slot. Across the front: 2 speakers located on each corner.

SUMMARY AND CLOSING REMARKS
In my opinion this laptop strikes a good balance between mobility and performance. It's some great features that blow away even some of the newer "bargain" models that come out since.

Check it out: dell latitude d600 laptop deal

Is Vista For You?

You would have had to have been living in a cave (without a TV or radio) not to see all the hype that surrounded Microsoft's January release of it's highly anticipated upgrade to XP operating system, Vista. Although it has a slew (yes, I said slew) of awesome features and upgrades, there are two categories of buyers that might want to wait before making the big jump to what Vista has to offer: Gamers and Businesspeople.

Why should hardcore gamers wait? Jeffery Wilson of Laptop magazine says "Although DirectX 10 (a Windows Vista graphical API) is designed to be backwards compatible with most DriectX 9 games, many older DirectX-compatible titles will be completely incompatible.

Some of the most popular games and their compatibilty issues
Released Using DirectX 10
Crysis

Scheduled for Release in the second Half of 2007

Unreal Tournament 2007

BioShock

Hellgate: London

World of Conflict

Age of Conan

Currently have DirectX 10 patches Available

Company of Heros

Flight Simulator X

One of Vista's Hyped new features is it's super-duper security capabilities. So why am I suggesting that businesspeople wait to upgrade? Wilson states "Large businesses tend to develop their own special tools and software, so they may not see Vista as possessing enough significant benefits to overcome the development costs of making their internal software compatible with the operating system, in addition to the initial costs of purchasing it."

So what are my final thoughts about upgrading to Vista? I think that there are some REALLY cool kick-butt features and improvements (especially in the area of security). Pass on it for now if your a hardcore gamer or a business user worried about your customs apps running smoothly. All others should go for it.

Reviews of Vista worth taking a look at:
www.cnet.com
www.pcmag.com
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