D620 or D820 ?

are they that thick or what?

i do not care about their weights... i have a compaq presario weighing almost 7lbs and i constantly walk around...

does the graphics card do good? i mean do they response well in light gaming (no doom or half life... i prefer racing games and rpg..). will those two graphics card option (256 and 512 shared) have reasonable performance difference?

the battery life? i would want them not connected as much as 4hours. will it be achievable or am i dreaming?

are those stell hinges? are they comparable to those in thinkpads? i am so afraid of notebook hinges and sometimes i look to it if it will withstand everyday constant closing-opening... my compaq presario has the bottom part of the screen lid (near hinges) "CRACKED" and opening/closing it has been a confussing experience...

i want a notebook who can compete well with thinkpad (T60 or Z61m) in terms of built and price compromise...

also, i like the mcafee antivirus in the dell (15months) and 3 year onsite service standard... i hate norton (deletes system files when uninstalled and cannot be fixed according to experience)...

so.... any users who wants to share experiences?

 

The D820 is very comprable to the Z61m, from what I've heard the build quality on the latitudes is also very nice. I believe the price is also quite similar as well espically if you can find any cupons

 

Personally, I would stay as far away from 14'1" widescreen notebooks as possible. If you read this forum, this screen has more problems than anything else out there. I have experienced 3 faulty screens with my e1405 I just sent back (all 3 had screen shimmer/sparkle and everyone I got got worse in light leakage ) Go with D820, Laptop Mag's Business Machine of the Month

 

I didnt know about those issues, but I havent heard anything bad about the D820 (I was really considering it before I got my mac) and if you get the 9-cell battery, it dosent stick out the back like some, you can get almost 7 hours of battery life, and yo uget 4 with the regular 6-cell battery which is still really good.

 

oh, one other thing to look at is the screen resolution on the D820, you can get up to 1920x1200, but apparently thats very hard to read on a 15.4" screen, My 17" laptop has 1680x1050, and I think thats just about perfect and would probably be the best for a 15.4" laptop

 

hmmm... nice points there guys...

so i'll cross out the D620 then...

does the battery life of the D820 really that long-lasting? i mean it is a big machine after all... and the video card? is it 128MB dedicated + shared to get to the maximum 512MB?

does the hinges perform well? closing-opening and no rattling movements or whatever? i want it to last at least 3years...

i wanted an apple macbook pro but wanted to have it run xp.... not just run xp but run it and use the hardware just like a windows-based laptop... still waiting for that leopard

 

I've had my Latitude D620 for a week now and absolutely love it. Although it does get pretty warm on the bottom after using it for an hour or two but I guess that's somewhat normal for most notebooks.

I assume the hinges on the D620 and D820 are the same. The hinges on my D620 does not make any sound during opening and closing. It's not loose either. In order to open the lid you would have to have one hand on the lid and the other on the main part in order to "pry it open".

There's a review for both laptops you can check out if you haven't already done so.

 

If weight is not an issue get the D820 which has more memory for video and greater screen resolution.

The D620 is an excellent choice, however.

 

well i was planning on having a D620 with 2GB ram.... with MS SBE... closing to 2000+ ... good deal i think

i was thinking about the D820 that would cost me more though.... with 2GB ram i will never have to complain about a slow running laptop... but would it drain battery more?

anyone else's comment about the battery life? hinges (build quality,comments)?

 

I've had a D620 for about a month now, and I think it's a good machine. The hinges are a lot sturdier than the previous generation D series, and overall the chasis seems more solid.

Concerning the display shimmer -- the matte anti-glare coating seems to be a bit more aggressive than the coating on the D600. I can understand that this might annoy some people, but I personally do not find it annoying. YMMV.

Battery life appears to be 4-4.5 hours with WiFi enabled and the light sensor set to adjust panel brightness relative to ambient lighting conditions. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied. I have the 945GM chipset w' integrated graphics. I don't play games, so this is more than good enough. If you want to do anything with heavy 3D, go with the nVidia quadro chip.

 

Hinges are solid, as is build quality.

Customer service is excellent.

I have the NVIDIA and even though I do light gaming, the fact that you can adjust a lot of the color settings (brightness,contrast, etc), makes the screen look better - at the expense of battery life (8:30 Lowest brightness with WIFI off versus 6:40 with NVIDIA).

 

I did notice that the bottom of the D620 can get pretty hot around where the CPU and HDD are located. Curiously, when I turn the machine off, it seems to cool down rapidly. My previous Latitude CP remained fairly hot for awhile even after shutdown.

 

Here's an extra break down of the two machines

What they have in common
-Good build quality
-Good keyboards
-Great keyboard layout
-Matte Screens
-Professional looks
-Dell business class customer service (better)
-Workstation type graphics cards available
-No firewire or flash card reader
-Security card reader

D620
-Smaller size/ profile will be easier to carry around.
-Battery life is probably a little better on this machine.
-WXGA+ is rare on a 14.1 widescreen. This is one of the rare ones with it available. WXGA+ is considered resolution on a 14.1". You wouldn't want it any higher on a screen that size.
-Know for screen defects.
- Review

D820
-Larger screen
-WSXGA+ and WUXGA+ resolutions available (WSXGA+ is fantastic on a 15.4 in my opinion)
-Heavier, less easy to carry around
-More video memory
-Good battery performance
-Seems to be a higher satisfaction rate. But it could just be me.
- Review

I hope this helps.

Peace out! -Niki

 

thanks guys, niki, titaniummd... i really appreciate it... giving me more reasons to buy a dell rather than the thinkpads...


now to get some money... i think i'm going for the D620/2GB/256MB NVIDIA/9cell/DVD writer/MS SBE]

oh... i have read that the D620 and D820 screens are dim... i hope this is not true... or does the highest brightness setting will do?... i think i would just disable the ambient light sensor on these things if ever...


now would anyone contest to this decision? hehe... this community is such a good place here in the web.

 

The screen is dim if you end up with the LG. The Samsung is brighter. Brightness can be augmented using the NVIDIA software.

 

hmm...i hope i would get the samsung screen.

titaniummd... what screen did you got?