Thirtysomething Dad,
Just turned green, is blue that far away?
Thirtysomething Dad,
Just turned green, is blue that far away?
Member since:12.10.2004
Reviews:10
Members who trust:1
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!!!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
(+) Product is fine but dont bother buying from them direct due to poor customer service/ norights (-) Product is fine but dont bother buying from them direct due to poor customer service/ no rights
(+) cool and quite robust trackpad, good display,64-bit windows 7 (-) few connectors,dell drivers only, not realy for gameing (most models), finger print prone!
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Nov 24th, 2004
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