As one of the world's leading notebook brands, Dell Latitude products are known for their reliability, high performance, low cost of ownership, platform compatibility and excellent... more
A review by mike_ciao on Dell Latitude D600 November 24th, 2004
Author's product rating:
Speed
Fast
Look & Feel
Good
Comfort & Portability
Good
Robustness & Durability
Good
Value For Money
Good
Advantages:
Good sturdy corporate workhorse
Disadvantages:
Catch, foot & screws missing after one year of use
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
The Dell D series of laptops came out in 2003 to replace the C series laptops (how did they come up with such a catchy name?). The main ranges are the D400, D600 and D800 spot the pattern yet. The D600 is the middle of the range in terms of size, weight and features.
This machine has been designed like its predecessor to be a common platform (The C-series had 7 years in the same form) that will provide long lasting stability for those that use and maintain the laptops. So if you DVD drive stops working, your IT department can swap one out without worrying about whether it will fit.
The D platform is based around the Intel Pentium M processor and the Centrino chipset. The lower clock speeds of the Pentium may appear underpowered to their desktop rivals, but this chip has been fundamentally redesigned to get more work done per clock cycle than a standard Pentium 4. In addition the Pentium chip being designed for "mobile" use, has power saving facilities designed in - hence better battery life. The final element of Centrino is the Intel wireless 802.11b. Not all D600s will carry the Centrino badge, either because wireless has not been included, or because a better wireless solution has been included that Intel have excluded from their Centrino branding.
So enough of the technical jargon - how is the laptop? Well when mine arrived, it was downgraded to our corporate standard of Windows 2000. I was impressed with the agility of the laptop, flying through heavy Excel spreadsheets and macros. The keyboard is great, although I mostly use mine via the excellent docking station.
Track pad and stick are both comfortable to use, with the added facility to automatically disable them while typing (stops the cursor jumping to strange places).
The hard disk and DVD player are quiet in use. For an idea of the speed, it will rip a CD in 3 or 4 minutes or so.
The screen is 1400x1050, which may be too detailed for older eyes. Some users can't cope and have to run a lower resolution, which results in blocky interpolation. Now that I am used to it I could never go back to 1024x768.
I have had my laptop now for over 15 months. The lid catch lasted a couple of months, one of the rubber feet has vanished and I am now missing a screw from the base. But that counts as reliable in my book. Nothing fundamental has gone, and my laptop has travelled well.
There are a couple of features of note. The Battery indicator is 5 LEDs which give an indication of power without opening the laptop. The power supply is designed so that the cables can be wound round it and held with an integral rubber strap. Would be better though if it used a standard 3-pin cable so that I could use a monitor or PC lead when at someone's desk.
So to sum up: Would I buy this laptop for myself? Yes. Would I insist on this laptop if I was buying and supporting it for my business? Definitely!!!
Advantages: Many features in one laptop, great student computer. Disadvantages: No floppy disc drive.
...and the college offered us Dell Latitude D600's at discounted prices. I agree with their choice at picking this laptop, because it's a great all-purpose laptop for a wide variety of uses.
Okay, first, hardware. This laptop is not the lightest out there, for those of you wanting featherweight laptops, but I carry mine with me all the time in my bookbag and I don't feel the weight to be an issue. The matte screen gives crisp, vibrant images that are ... ...DVD ROM is excellent because you can use it to burn CDs and DVDs, in addition to playing them. Perfect for students (or just anyone in general) who have limited room on their dinky desks and don't want eighty plug-ins sticking out from all over the place.
There is NO floppy disc drive, but those are becoming outdated anyway. There is a USB port, and you can use the USB storage devices easily. Simply plug it in, and you're ready to save stuff onto ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Very robust, large screen & a solid performer! Disadvantages: Fairly large and can get quite hot.
...lot less reliable and the dell had good reviews all round - I have no been disappointed! The D600 does everything my home PC can do and more, with a lot less problems.
The laptop/notebook is not the cheapest out there but the value for money and quality of the product is excellent!
The only drawbacks I have found is that the hard-drive does get hot and you can feel this when you are typing; the heat is not uncomfortable however and is not uncommon ... ...the keys are fairly far back from the front of the laptop so you have to rest your hands at the bottom of the laptop itself. I myself find this to be perfectly acceptable but it may be a negative for some people depending on their preference. One one had the large screen is a pro for working with but at the same time it makes it less portable and comfortable to carry with the added weight, saying this it is less heavy than most other laptops of the ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Has a good Touch pad Disadvantages: only one usb port
Okay, first, hardware. This laptop is not very light out there, for those of you wanting featherweight laptops, but I carry mine with me all the time in my book bag and I don't feel the weight to be an issue. The screen gives crisp, vibrant images that are easy on the eyes, without any annoying glares at all The DVD ROM is excellent because you can use it to burn CDs and DVDs, in addition to playing them. There is NO floppy disc drive, but those ... ...you can use the USB storage devices easily. Simply plug it in, and you're ready to save stuff onto your USB storage without having to go through any new hardware install processes.
The keyboard is very quiet, which is a plus when you are typing In addition, the keyboard has both the track stick and the touch pad, so fans of either will be satisfied. Also, both of them (yes, even the track stick) include the tap-clicking function, which is a small ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Light and Reliable Disadvantages: keyboard
I have been using DELL laptop since I start working 5 years back. My first Laptop was inpiron 2500, No Problem at all. After all, I have decided to change to Dell D600 with high end spec.40GB hitachi HD, 1024 Sdramm, DVD/CD-RW. Been using this laptop for a year untill now. The onle problem I have is the Hard Drive. I have change 2 replacement for Hitachi Hard drive. I got fed up, I dicided not to get hitachi anymore. I have move my decision to Western ... ...heavy work load and program, DELL D600 still giving me a best performance than rest. More stable and reliable. The Only best of this laptop is Build-up everything which you need or dont need it. Etc: Security Card, Bluetooth, Wifi, Video Out-put, Irda 2xUSB. 1xSerial Port. (what can you ask more?)
Dell should have put more USB port rather than 2 is insufficeint for me.
For thier technical support, I think you cant find where else but DELL. They ...
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This dell laptop in my opinion is not very good. It has 256 random access memory and this is very poor. Also the processor which is 1.3GHz is below average causing this laptop to freeze when opening multiple objects and causing it to sometimes be very slow. I tried to run a game on this laptop (Football Manager 2008) and this laptop simply was not good enough to allow me to play it. It said the laptops graphics card needs to be updated, this laptop ... ...this laptop is good and the quality of sound it produces is good.
This laptop is very limited as I tried to connect this laptop to my television but as it didn't have the correct screen resolution it wouldn't work. I would only recommend this laptop if you don't want to use it for gaming purposes and if you just want to browse the internet and listen to music. As the hardrive is sufficient for this. Another good thing about this laptop is it is ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Graphics Processor / Vendor: ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 AGP 4x
Video Memory: DDR SDRAM - 32 MB
Audio
Audio Output: Sound card
Compliant Standards: AC '97
Input device(s)
Type: Keyboard, touchpad, Track Stick
Operating system / software
OS Provided: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1
Software: Drivers & Utilities
Ciao
Listed on Ciao since : 10/02/2004
Manufacturer's product description
As one of the world's leading notebook brands, Dell Latitude products are known for their reliability, high performance, low cost of ownership, platform compatibility and excellent service and support. The new D-Family builds on the success and traditions of the C-series, optimizing the latest performance and productivity features and making them available to the mobile professional through a fully customizable business solution. The Latitude D600 gives you desktop PC performance out on the road. Featuring the Intel Pentium M processors up to 1.6GHz and the Intel 855PM chipset, users gain access to the very latest mobile processing technologies. The latest Intel Pentium M processors incorporate a series of new architectural advances that optimize the performance of your notebook giving users advanced notebook processing power and enhanced battery life for extended mobility. The Mobile Latitude D600 supports up to 2GB of system memory and the latest ATA-100 hard drives as well as new USB 2.0. Every Latitude D600 is wireless-enabled, incorporating an integrated dual-band antenna and MiniPCI WiFi Intel PROWireless 2100 802.11b wireless LAN card as standard giving the user Intel Centrino mobile technology. The Latitude D600 also offers a choice of either a Dell TrueMobile 1300 802.11 b/g wireless LAN card or a Dell TrueMobile 1400 802.11 a/b/g wireless LAN card. As well an optional Dell TrueMobile 300 Bluetooth wireless option, the Latitude D600 also features as standard an integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet 4 chip supporting Wake-on-LAN from all power states and integrated 56K v.92-capable modem supporting Wake-on-Ring.
