D620 to replace HP zx5000

Well my HP zx5000 is getting rather old and I'm looking at replacing it. At work I have a D610 with the ATI x300 and have pretty happy with that especially the durability and form factor. So I've configured this D620 and was wondering what other's experiences/suggestions are. Especially concerning the performance of the Nvidia graphics chip and battery life:

Latitude D620 Notebook Qty 1
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5500 (1.66GHz) 2M L2 Cache, 667Mhz Dual Core, Genuine Windows® XP Professional, SP2, with media Unit Price $1,262.41
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5500 (1.66GHz) 2M L2 Cache, 667Mhz Dual Core D6255D [222-6945] 1
Operating Systems Genuine Windows® XP Professional, SP2, with media XPPRO2 [420-4790] 11
LCDs 14.1 inch Wide Screen WXGA+ LCD Panel 14WXG [320-4573] 2
Memory 1.0GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 1 DIMM 1G1D6 [311-5686] 3
Internal Keyboard Internal English Keyboard ENG [310-8713] 4
Graphics 256MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 110M TurboCache™ NVS110M [320-5257] 6
Hard Drives 80GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 5400RPM 80D54 [341-2979] 8
Touchpad Options Touchpad with UPEK® Fingerprint Reader FRTPAD [310-7269] 9
Floppy Drive No Floppy Drive NFD [340-8854] 10
Bluetooth Dell Wireless® 350 Bluetooth Module BT350 [430-1487] 13
AC Adapter 65W A/C Adapter 65AC [310-7283] 15
Module Bay Devices 8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio Digital Media™ and Cyberlink Power DVD™ 8XDVRW [313-3883] 16
Wireless LAN (802.11) Intel® 3945 802.11a/g Dual-Band Mini Card IPW3945 [430-1961] 19
Resource CD Resource CD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers RCD [313-3885] 26
Batteries 9 Cell Primary Battery 9C [312-0379] 27
Carrying Cases Ultra-Light Nylon Slip Case UNCC [310-7277] 28
Hardware Support Services 3 Year Limited Warranty plus 3 Year NBD On-Site Service UI3OS [984-7977][984-7978][970-4642][980-0880] 29
File System NTFS File System for all Operating Systems NTFS [420-3699] 37
Express Upgrade to Windows Vista Express Upgrade to Windows Vista Business from XP Professional, ENG VBU32E [310-8590][420-6441] 201
Additional System Options $100 Instant Savings (included in price) 614812 [461-2677] 701
TOTAL:$1,262.41

 

nice config except:

1. I would go with a faster c2d processor, say t5600 or above

2. If you want to run vista, u need 2 gigs of RAM for good performance, you can get the 2 gig ram upgrade thru dell (more expensive), or you can buy the laptop with the 1 gig 1 dimm ram then buy a 1 gb stick from newegg and install it on your own (cheaper)

3. 256 mg Quadro video card is designed for office / business use and will not run games properly and it might be a little while before this card gets a decent driver update for vista (not a concern if you're not into gaming)


Cheers

 

1) Processor I might do
2) I forgot to mention that was what I was planning on doing as dell wants like 250 ~300 dollars for 1 more gig and its 60.00 or so on Newegg
3) are you sure it wont be very good? I've quite a few games on my D610 w/ ATI x300 and while they aren't the latest or anything they do run. Of course I suppose this comes from assuming which games I would be playing or not playing.
Mainly older RTS but with 1 new (Starcraft, WCIII, AOEII,& Company of Heroes) Also any idea how it would run with Photoshop/Lightroom and GIS?
Better or worse than Radeon 9600 64mb in the zx5000

 

I never had any experience with neither of these cards. so I can't tell you which one is better....

I am not saying that the Quadro card is bad.... I'm just trying to point out that since its designed specifically for business laptops , CAD use etc.. nvidia will not care so much about upgrading the drivers for this GPU since it's not designed for games etc.. In comparison with the X1400 on I6400 or the Go7400, I would imagine that it's much more inferior in terms of hardware and software capabilities.

"Quadro NVS 110M TurboCache" TurboCache means that it takes up some of the system resources to work. It might be worthwhile checking how much of the 256 mb is actually dedicated. x1400 and go7400 both have 128 mb of dedicated memory and share the rest with system ram.

check the mobile graphics info page on this website for more info ... cheers

 

i know how much is dedicated its 64mb (same as my 9600) and in the D820 with the 510M its 256 Dedicated and 512mb but I can't get that on the D620 and I'd prefer to stick with the smaller size and all but i might look at the d820.

 

A few more questions:
anyone have any experience on how battery life is with the 9cell primary and 6cell modular battery?

Also anyone use photoshop on this laptop? or ARC GIS?

 

get the 9cell battery trust me you will love the battery life.

 

Or wait for the D630 in hmmm I'd guess 3 weeks so you will have (and probably pay much much more...)

from wikipedia:
* second generation Intel Core 2 processor (code-named Merom) that uses Socket P
* 800 MT/s front side bus with Dynamic Front Side Bus Switching to save power during low utilization
* Intel Mobile 965 Express chipset (code named Crestline) with Intel's GMA X3000 graphics technology
* Intel PRO/Wireless 4965AGN IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n mini-PCIe Wi-Fi adapter (code named Kedron)
* NAND flash-memory caching branded as Turbo Memory (code-named Robson)
* EFI, a successor to BIOS
* Intel Dynamic Acceleration (IDA), better Windows Vista Aero support [1]

My d630 wishlist:
*Good screen
*Good screen
*Newer graphic card plzzzz 110m is kinda old (hdcp would be nice)
*sd card slot
*not to expensive vs the d620

 

As long as your okay with installing non-OEM drivers the NVS 110m will be perfectly fine for your needs, it's just a 7300go but with workstation drivers stock. It will definitely outperform the X300 in the D610. You can get updated drivers with modified INF files at LaptopVideo2Go, their forums in particular keep up with the latest betas released.

The one issue with using non-laptopOEM drivers for nvidia cards is the screen will no longer turn off automatically when the lid is closed. I currently use Monitor Off set to a keyboard shortcut to turn off the screen.

With both the 9-cell and modular bay battery I get around 6:30 hours at medium screen brightness with it consuming around 19-20W. I believe the NVS 110m takes a chunk out of battery life even though it's a relatively weak performing GPU. Though I can't be sure without comparing with a D620 with integrated graphics, but I'd guess an integrated graphics model would use ~15-16W at the same settings.

Personally I'd like to see Dell offer their Latitudes with the latest AMD mobile platform. I know the Turion X2 has nothing on the C2D in terms of CPU performance in the high end, but with AMD's latest mobile chipset supposedly supporting hybrid graphics it should definitely give AMD notebooks with (AMD/ATI?) dedicated graphics a shot at surpassing their Intel counterparts at battery life.

 

I did. It seemed to do fine though I wasn't doing anything high end. As I recall I got 2.5-3 hours on the six cell depending on usage. The nine cell sticks out the front if you care. The question on the D620 is always the screen. You might want to check the screen thread over on Dell's forum.