Dell Latitude D600 Laptop Review:

Dell D600 Laptop - The Dell Latitude D600 Laptop is designed for motion, with long battery life and easy-to-carry style. Dell D600 Laptop starts at just under 5 pounds and only 1.29 inches thin when closed. Integrated wireless connectivity is standard, with Intel Centrino Mobile Technology, so you can compute and stay connected anywhere, anytime where wireless access is available.

The thin-and-light Dell Latitude D600 Laptop, based on the new Pentium M processor, marks the start of an ambitious new corporate look for Dell. Not only has the company redesigned all of its popular Latitude laptops, it has also reworked its docking stations, port replicators, and media modules. The notebooks carry the very latest components, including Pentium M processors and Intel’s new 855 chipset. The Dell D600 Laptop series isn’t always a true-blue Centrino, but it can be. The company offers either the Centrino-completing Intel Pro wireless mini-PCI card, known as Calexico, or Dell Computer’s own TrueMobile Wi-Fi mini-PCI cards, supporting 802.11a/b/g. If your corporate budget includes money for a new laptop line, the Latitude D series is a wise way to spend it.
If the old Latitude C600 was the comfort food of corporate computing, then the new Latitude D600 series would be the dessert. The silver Dell D600 Laptop is a smaller, sleeker version of the gray C600, measuring 1.2 by 12.4 by 10.1 inches and weighing an easy-to-tote 5.3 pounds. It still includes an internal swappable bay that houses a second battery or one of various drives: CD, DVD, CD-RW, DVD/CD-RW, floppy, or a second 40GB hard drive.

Like the C600, the Dell D600 Laptop series includes both a pointing stick in the middle of the spacious, comfortable keyboard and a touchpad centered in the wrist rest. There are four mouse buttons: two below the spacebar (you’re supposed to use these with the pointing stick) and two below the touchpad. Three handy buttons for volume–Up, Down, and Mute–are located in the upper-left corner above the keyboard.

The Latitude D600 has all of the standard ports and slots required for everyday business applications. Headphone and microphone jacks, an IrDA port, and one Type II PC Card slot line the left edge. The slot includes an embedded smart-card reader that lets employees store and read their passwords and other info on optional smart cards (the cards are available in a number of sizes and prices from various third-party manufacturers). Two speakers with middling sound occupy the front-edge corners. Two USB 2.0, S-Video-out, 56Kbps modem, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, parallel, VGA, and serial ports stretch out across the rear edge.

The Pentium M on which this series is based comes in 1.3GHz, 1.4GHz, and 1.6GHz speeds–all paired with Intel’s new 855PM chipset. You can order your Latitude with anywhere from 128MB to 2GB of fast 266MHz DDR SDRAM; a 40GB hard drive spinning at a speedy 5,400rpm or 20GB, 30GB, and 60GB drives running at 4,200rpm; a 32MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics chip; and a number of swappable modules for the single internal bay, including CD, DVD, CD-RW, DVD/CD-RW, floppy, a second hard drive, or a second battery. The average-sized, 14.1-inch screen isn’t as impressive as some of the other components; fortunately for those who deal with detailed graphics, it comes in a fine 1,400×1,050 native resolution. (You can save a little money by dropping back to a 1,024×768 display instead.) The configuration we tested included the 1.6GHz PM processor; 512MB of DDR memory; the fast 40GB hard drive; and the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 with 32MB of video memory.
Dell Latitude D600 Laptop User Review:

Dell D600 Laptop cons:
1-You’ve read already: the left handrest goes too hot and it feels VERY uncomfortable even with a 4200rpm HD 2- Depending on the colors used for the background, the screen shows several little spots, it’s a flaw and I don’t know if there is a fix for this. It is also a little uneven in brightness (this is for the 1400×1050 screen) 4- The standard power charger is TOO heavy and BIG. 5- The all-plastic case is poorly designed, the speaker grilles are ridiculous. 6- The worst apeakers I’ve found in notebooks, the loudest volume is still too low. 7- the “security” screw for the optical drive does not secure anything, just unscrew it and your optical drive is gone. 8- short battery life, even for the 6-cell 9- the black mouse buttons are cheap plastic with an irritating loud “click” 10- it needs 8 small rubber dots to prevent the screen to touch the keyboard when closed. I consider this a bad design and it adds to the notebook’s height.
Now the good points:
1- After a lot of search, the best features for the price paid for a well known brand 2- 1400×1050 screen is great, you can see a lot of information in a small 14″ screen; it is also very sharp 3- good wireless reception. 4- It’s a dicontinued model at this point, I hope the new models does have a better design 5- very silent even with the fan running. 6- s-video out works well, you can use a s-video to RCA cable and it works with TVs without s-video in.
Overall:
I can’t complain with Dell because I knew I was paying for the features instead of good design. My dream notebook at the time was the T42 (now it’s the T43); IBM is better in every feature I listed above. If you can afford IBM’s price, don’t think twice, even if you don’t fall in love with IBM’s “all-black” design.

by TheUnixMan

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