... Either the connector to the PC splits, or it simply fails and is no longer recognised as a Dell adaptor, which means the battery does not become charged.
Warranty and support
The 3-year warranty with on-site cover plus accidental damage cover cost me about £120 extra. This has proved absolutely ... Read review
Advantages: solid, durable, good customer support in Ireland Disadvantages: overheats, slow, abysmal quality of power adaptor, poor customer support in India
...no longer recognised as a Dell adaptor, which means the battery does not become charged.
===Warranty and support===
The 3-year warranty with on-site cover plus accidental damage cover cost me about £120 extra. This has proved absolutely invaluable. I've had the keyboard replaced after a spill, the display replaced after I trod on it (blush!), two changes of motherboard after power adaptor glitches meant the battery ran ... ...although less high-spec than the Dell at least as, if not more, efficient. As I come to the end of the Dell extended warranty, I've ordered a Lenovo Thinkpad in the hope that it will maintain the advantages of the IBM Thinkpad.
I'm asked whether I would recommend the computer to a friend. It's difficult to decide between yes and no. Somebody who uses a laptop more lightly might well be very satisfied with the performance. On balance, ... more
I bought this laptop in September 2006 with the following specification:
Intel Centrino Duo T2300 1.66 GHz processor
1 Gb RAM
3 year on-site warranty, response within one business day, plus cover for accidental damage
My primary use for the laptop is for my work. As a freelance translator, I work to crazy deadlines so sometimes use the computer for 18 hours a day or more.
Performance
I'm not really a gamer, so am not going to cover gaming performance except to say that I did try to play Morrowind a few times and found that although the graphics were fine, the game ran very, very slowly.
With respect to work, I need to run several applications at once: MS Word or Excel or Powerpoint to display the document I'm translating; sometimes Acrobat or Foxit to display reference material in pdf format; dictionary software; browser for additional web research. Sometimes I also need to run Trados translation memory software, which is fairly intensive on CPU and memory.
In my experience, working in my normal mode results in the hard drive thrashing round much of the time, CPU running between 50% and 100%. As a result, I often have the frustrations of having the display freeze up, programmes crashing, and the computer running so slowly that I cannot see what I am typing and cannot swap easily between e.g. Word and the browser (something I need to do frequently when I am researching terminology). In addition, the computer often overheats and shuts down as a result. Even when it doesn't, I frequently need to reboot to get the computer to untwist its knickers.
The touch-pad is also temperamental. I have lost the mouse function on numerous occasions. Fortunately, there is also a pointy button thing (sorry, don't know what this is called) in the middle of the keyboard, with its own mouse buttons, so I have been able to use that when the touch-pad has been stubborn. The little rubber cover for this perished some time back, but it is still usable. When both fail, I need to reboot.
Battery life is not too bad for a computer of this age. I can still get about 2 hours work away from mains power.
Overall, I'm not over satisfied with the performance. When I bought the computer, I did upgrade from 500 Mb to 1 Gb memory, but perhaps should have gone higher.
Durability
I chose a Latitude because one of the major selling points is durability. The computer has certainly lived up to that claim. It has a nice, solid feel to it. After three years of very hard use, the lettering has only worn off one key. There is now a crack in the frame of the display, but this happened only recently. This is a marvellous contrast to my previous laptop, a Vaio, which became unusable after 18 months due to numerous faults, keys becoming blank and falling out. However, the power adaptor is another matter. Over the three years, I have had to have this replaced four times. Either the connector to the PC splits, or it simply fails and is no longer recognised as a Dell adaptor, which means the battery does not become charged.
Warranty and support
The 3-year warranty with on-site cover plus accidental damage cover cost me about £120 extra. This has proved absolutely invaluable. I've had the keyboard replaced after a spill, the display replaced after I trod on it (blush!), two changes of motherboard after power adaptor glitches meant the battery ran down so much I could no longer flash the bios to solve problems.
The next business day promise was fine when I lived in Nottingham. However, when I moved deep into the Rhondda, I have had to wait 3 days for an engineer to call. Since my laptop is my livelihood, this is not good!
Customer support is very variable. It really depends where the call gets routed. If I get the help desk in Ireland, there are no problems. The matter is dealt with efficiently and knowledgeably. India is another matter altogether. The help-desk staff there are often difficult to understand. They stick to a standard script and often have me tearing my hair out in frustration. On one occasion, the person even hung up on me after I repeatedly told him I could not understand what he was saying.
Conclusions
I cannot fault this laptop for durability. I am unhappy with the poor quality of the power adaptor, the tendency to overheat, the awful Indian help desk and the less than satisfactory engineer coverage in South Wales. When things have gone badly, I've resorted to an ancient IBM Thinkpad (Windows 2000 era), bought secondhand to serve as a backup machine on which to work. That laptop is still pristine and although less high-spec than the Dell at least as, if not more, efficient. As I come to the end of the Dell extended warranty, I've ordered a Lenovo Thinkpad in the hope that it will maintain the advantages of the IBM Thinkpad.
I'm asked whether I would recommend the computer to a friend. It's difficult to decide between yes and no. Somebody who uses a laptop more lightly might well be very satisfied with the performance. On balance, though, given the power adaptor problems and the awful help-desk in India, I have to say no.
Advantages: Speedy, no-nonsense, relatively portable Disadvantages: Vertical resolution a bit low
...to have received this particular DELL model. The previous work laptop (temporary) was also a DELL, but a very small Inspiron (12.1 inch screen).
First off, the size is excellent - quite portable, not too heavy, quite thin. Screen size is good enough, although I am not a fan of widescreen on a laptop, as usually the vertical resolution isn't quite enough for what I need it for.
Keyboard is great to type on, and this is coming from a person that ... ...can take a lot of punishment (I write hundreds and hundreds of documents every month).
The mouse-nub pointer is ok, but if compared to the IBM equivalent, it doesn't compare at all, its a bit hard to get the accuracy sorted out. Regarding the touchpad, it is a little small, but is better to use than the mouse-nub.
The laptop performs very well for tasks ranging from the normal MS Office, to Photoshop - helped a lot by the Core Duo inside. My particular ...
mrpang0 10.03.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Dell Latitude D620
Advantages: Compact, relatively light, well built and well equiped Disadvantages: no seperate number pad, battery life could be longer
...price (about 1/2 the £1100 Dell would charge for the same) and have to say I am extremely pleased with myself, and the laptop for that matter.
The above spec is just one of the many variations you could achieve and if ordering direct from Dell then you would have the opportunity to customise until your heart was content. The most basic D620 starts at £699 plus VAT and shipping for 1.66Mhz processor, 1Gb Ram, 80Gb hard drive, and you can easily stretch ... ...worries of them snapping off. Dell apparently undergo a lot of testing to ensure their build quality is upto the test of hard use.
The integrated wireless automatically registered my Broadband hub and the only delay was remembering the login password for Tiscali. Additionally, when the laptop is switched off you can flick a switch at the side and access the hard drive data wirelessly without having to boot up.
To cater for all user preferences ...
Ric_mears 20.02.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Dell Latitude D620
Advantages: Good size, widescreen, built in wireless, excellent performance. Disadvantages: Battery life could be better.
...decided to go for the Dell Latitude D620 and here is what I think of it. I won't go into to much technical detail regarding the complicated stuff and I will try and focus on how the laptop meets my needs which I think will be more helpful.
~~LOOKS AND DESIGN~~
This laptop is beautiful. It looks professional and its size is perfect. The shape of the laptops is slightly more rectangular than other laptops as it has a widescreen. I like this width ... ...lid.
~~BUILD QUALITY~~
The Dell Latitude D620 feels strong and sturdy. The laptop folds easily and clips in place nicely. Overall, it feels well made.
~~PERFORMANCE~~
This laptop has a dual core processor. I said I would go into technical detail so basically, the dual core processor means a faster and better performing laptop. I don't use the laptop for gaming but I do use iTunes, email, Word, the internet etc and it runs beautifully. I have ...
craigwstewart 10.09.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Latitude D620
Advantages: 14.1 is the perfect size, trackpoint mouse is my favourite Disadvantages: matt screen (but that is better than glossy in bright light), underside gets warm
I have owned this laptop for a year now and have found it very reliable. 14.1 inch screen is a perfect compromise between portable size and useable screen space. I found a 15.4 inch screen to be too large , particularly on lecture theatre desks and whilst using the tray table on the plane.
I really appreciate the trackpoint or eraser head mouse. I much prefer it to the pad as it allows me to touch type and use the mouse without moving my hands too ...
tphb 03.08.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Latitude D620
Advantages: Great screen clarity, good build, fit and finish Disadvantages: Heavy, too bulky, annoying proprietry power supply.
...but unless they also use Dell that won't work here. Still, back to the laptop, it has wireless and bluetooth both of which work well for me and the chance to have a 3G data card integrated is a smart step. It also has a DVD drive, but again as a corporate laptop all my applications are pre-installed so I have absolutely no need for this. I suppose I could use it to watch DVDs but then I would have preferred the laptop to be smaller and lighter and ... ...could leave it at home most of the time and save a few 100grams for the inevitable train journeys in and out of the capital. So in summary, as long as you realise that this laptop is not optimised for portability then you'll probably be very happy with it. As it stands it's classic IT Purchasing Department fodder, and really not very optimised for anything at all. To my eyes it's a bland, uninspired choice and for that reason gets just three stars ...
cherry_chariot 18.07.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Latitude D620
Speed
Look & Feel
Comfort & Portability
Robustness & Durability
Value For Money
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