This review is about the Dell Latitude D505, though comments about the design of the laptop will apply to any model in the D500 series.
Size and Weight
This is a mid range laptop, it’s light and compact with excellent battery life and is designed to carried around rather than being a ... Read review
(+) positive aspects include the speed, apperance/design of the laptop, and the enhanced performance. (-) i have a matt black laptop and it shows dirty finger prints.
Advantages: Well styled, solidly built Disadvantages: Little over priced for spec
This review is about the Dell Latitude D505, though comments about the design of the laptop will apply to any model in the D500 series.
Size and Weight
This is a mid range laptop, it’s light and compact with excellent battery life and is designed to carried around rather than being a high performance desktop replacement.
Styling
The laptop is finished all over in a attractive titanium silver, the ... ...1024 x 768 (XGA). However, Dell do the same chassis with a 15” screen so I’d go for that if possible although a bigger screen would reduce the battery life.
Networking
The laptop includes a 10/100 wired ethernet network port and built in wireless 802.11b/g (wifi) (supporting 11mb and 54mb wireless networks) networking. The wireless network uses a Dell chipset which comes with a useful driver utility to set up and configure ... more
This review is about the Dell Latitude D505, though comments about the design of the laptop will apply to any model in the D500 series.
Size and Weight This is a mid range laptop, it’s light and compact with excellent battery life and is designed to carried around rather than being a high performance desktop replacement.
Styling The laptop is finished all over in a attractive titanium silver, the styling is quite plain with no ‘twiddly bits’ to distract the eye (...and fall off...). Build quality is excellent, the laptop has a quality solid feel.
Performance This particular model has a 1.3ghz Celeron M processor and 256mb, its not the most powerful laptop you’ll find but it’s perfectly adequate for running office applications. Windows XP and Office 2003 are both very responsive. The graphics chipset is nothing special - no games here!
Storage The laptop has no floppy drive, if you need a floppy drive then you’ll need an external floppy drive which plugs into a USB port. The laptop has a DVD and CD Writer combo drive, I’m not sure exactly what speed the drive is but it wrote a CD in just a few minutes. The laptop contains a 60gb hard drive which is more than enough storage for most people (I think the hard drive was an optional upgrade - I think it comes with a 40gb drive as standard).
Battery Life Battery life is excellent, I’ve had around 4.5 hours of general usage from the laptop without needing to plug it in. I wasn’t using the DVD drive during this time, doing so would probably cut the battery life quite a bit.
Screen My particular model has only a 14” screen which is very clear and sharp and capable of a resolution of 1024 x 768 (XGA). However, Dell do the same chassis with a 15” screen so I’d go for that if possible although a bigger screen would reduce the battery life.
Networking The laptop includes a 10/100 wired ethernet network port and built in wireless 802.11b/g (wifi) (supporting 11mb and 54mb wireless networks) networking. The wireless network uses a Dell chipset which comes with a useful driver utility to set up and configure wireless network settings. The aerial seems to be well positioned in the laptop - it gets good reception in a location where my other laptop struggles to find a signal. According to Dell the only reason this laptop does not have an Intel Centrino badge is because it uses the Dell wireless chipset instead of the Intel one.
Also included is a plain old 56k modem.
Ports The laptop has a firewire port for connection of a digital video camera or iPOD, a nice feature but not something I’ve actually used.
Only two USB ports are provided and both of these are around the back of the laptop. I would have liked to have seen more, particularly with the lack of floppy drive. Perhaps with one around the side of the laptop to make it easy to plug in a memory key.
A external VGA port is provided to enable the laptop to be plugged into a monitor or projector.
An infra red port is included, although by default it was disabled in the BIOS when I received the laptop which is poor.
Microphone and headphone ports are provided, conveniently located around the left hand side of the laptop.
A serial port and PS/2 port for an external mouse or keyboard is provided.
A single PC card slot is provided, one is probably all you’ll need given that the laptop has built in network and wireless network.
Using the Laptop The laptop has a very nice keyboard, the keys have plenty of travel and is a pleasure to type on. Included is a basic trackpad with two buttons, this is responsive and quite pleasant to use. The laptop doesn’t get too hot to use on your lap.
Power Supply The power supply is worth a special mention, as it is shaped to allow the cable to be wrapped tidily around it and has a built in strap to retain the cable. Much better than the bit of Velcro you get to try and tame the leads on other power bricks!
Value The laptop is quite expensive, its probably possible to find an equivalent spec laptop from Toshiba or similar for £100-200 less. Whether or not this laptop is good value to you depends on whether you think Dell’s build quality and support services are worth the extra premium.
Advantages: Good build quality Disadvantages: Extremely slow
...reviewers that Dell would never stamp their name on such a worthless product (even if it was their entry-level model) - just goes to show you can't trust in reputation alone. I can now confidently predict that I will never purchase another Dell computer again - once bitten ... ...
roundhay129 10.01.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Latitude D500
Advantages: I now prefer laptop to PC Disadvantages: none in particular
...for money. The replacement keyboard cost around £100, expensive compared to a keyboard for a PC, but a very small fraction of the value of a laptop I suppose.
The Dell on-line support, and the Dell telephone helpline cannot be faulted (from my experience with the failed keyboard). ...
deebeebee 21.09.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Latitude D500
Speed
Look & Feel
Comfort & Portability
Robustness & Durability
Value For Money
Quick review of Dell Latitude D500
Light weight, but light durability. ABSOLUTELY HAS TO HAVE 1gb to function in a reasonable manner. It will take up to 10 minutes to boot with 512mb. Do not use Norton AV as this really makes it slow. Wifi support is useless and required considerable research just to fix connect problems and Dell support is a joke. Re-installing XP helps the speed but background tasks are real dogs on this machine. This machine SCREAMS on Linux, it just isn't a great Winblows machine. ...
ka0osk 10.08.2007
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Latitude D500
Advantages: Easily Portable, Long Lasting Battery Disadvantages: Low Memory, No Joystick Port
I recently Got The Dell Laptop a while ago just before my birthday, and since then, i have barely been away from it. From the word go its simple to use, Mine came with Windows XP pre programmed in, so I didn't have to worry about installing that, but everything I needed to set up, was easy to do and anybody with a basic knowledge of just a keyboard could start using this laptop. The only bad thing I can say about it is the low memory, 20GB's may ... ...much i was using and my memory got full very fast, at which point it was running very slowly so I had to get rid of some things, thats when i realised that there was no CD Re-writer. So I your planning on buying this laptop, I reccomend you do so only if you plan on using little of the memory, and dont want to make your own cd's.
-Tom Rawstron ...
distilled 05.05.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Latitude D500
Advantages: Cheap, Very Upgradable, out-perform's ALL P4's because Cache size and out-performs DUAL CORE! Disadvantages: Not made anymore, Integrated Video makes upgrading hard and/or expensive.
This computer is for beginners or advanced user's. If you can understand why a muscle car is better than today's "Drive-By-Wire" auto's, you would understand why a D500 is better than a Dual Core or Hyperthreading. With the 2mb Cache, she's a Diamond in the RUFF! I have a Latitude D500 that I got about a year ago. When I got it, it only had a 1.3 Pentium M and a 40 gb HDD with 256 RAM. Since then, I have installed a 1.7 2mb L2 Cache Socket 479, 400FSB ... ...Dothan 765 which is the same exact stat's, only a 2.1 mHz freq Dothan Processor. I have put in 1.5 gb ram, and a 120 GB WD Blue WhisperDrive. It is a GREAT computer, although it does seem to run a bit hot. They don't make a faster CPU cooler for it, nor a larger cooler core, but it's alright, I keep it suspended on an open box with the fan side (left side) hanging off plus either a Fan or A/C pumping into it. Every once in a while I'll open it up ...
Karusai 05.08.2009 (28.09.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Dell Latitude D500
The Dell Latitude D500 is designed for users who require essential productivity and dependable quality at a value price. Even with it's affordable price, the D500 doesn't skimp on features using the Intel Pentium M processor and a bright 14.1" XGA Active Matrix display. The D500 also offers Intel Centrino Technology featuring the Intel Pentium M processor, the 855 chipset and the Intel PROWireless MiniPCI card. As well as integrated connectivity such as 56K Modem, 10/100 Ethernet and USB 2.0, all this incorporated into the Dell Latitude D-Family Moonlight Silver chassis. The Latitude D500 features an easy to use design with clearly visible status indicators, convenient modular bay, interchangeable with other D-Family notebook modules, full-size comfortable and durable keyboard, and easy to use latches on the display.
