D630 Review

Overview and Introduction:
Dell Latitude D630
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.00GHz) 4M L2 Cache, 800MHz Dual Core
Genuine Windows® XP Professional, SP2, with media
14.1 inch Wide Screen WXGA+ LCD Panel
120GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 7200RPM
8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio and Cyberlink Power DVD
128MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 135M (128MB dedicated ram)
Dell Wireless™ 1505 Draft 802.11n Mini
No Bluetooth
Touchpad with UPEK® Fingerprint Reader
9 Cell Primary Battery
90W A/C Adapter
3 yr Limited Hardware Warranty with Next Business Day On-Site Service
3 Year CompleteCare Accidental Damage Service
Price=$1511.20 and $1,607.74 after taxes and shipping and handling

I bought this laptop in late June and it arrived in early July. I do not like reviews written before one month of use. How can someone judge a laptop before it has been put through all of the tests? I needed a durable laptop with a good keyboard. My school gives discounts with Lenovo and Latitude laptops. I chose the Latitude because it has better battery life. I will go into more detail about battery life later in the review. This review only covers parts of the laptop I used. I am not going to include hard drive and video card tests because other reviews already describe these areas and I did not buy this laptop for games. I want to give a thorough review of everything I use my laptop for and I rarely run games on my laptop.
Where and How Purchased
I bought the laptop though the Dell Premier website with my college. At the time I thought it was a great deal. Now I know the price I paid was good, but nothing special.
Build and Design:
This quality of the case is the best. The lid flexes slightly when I apply extreme force on the far corners of the laptop. Less than over-the-top force or applying force away from the corners does not budge the lid. Since I bought the laptop, I have not seen a single ripple. I needed a durable laptop because I lug this laptop everywhere with me in a large backpack. It takes more abuse than most laptops will seen in their lifetime. So far the laptop does not have a single scratch. The case does not have any flaws I can think of after one month of use. I was extremely impressed by the laptop screen durability. I was eating a wrap with marinara sauce. Some of the sauce ended up on the screen and I panicked. At first I tried my best to touch the screen, but not touch it. I used a cotton T-shirt and barely touched the screen. After rubbing the screen for about a minute, I realized the screen is protected by a piece of plastic. Unlike most laptops which have flimsy screens that will break when a slight force is applied, the latitude screen is tough. I was soon applying force to remove the stain. While cleaning my laptop I did not see any ripples. It did not take long to remove the stain without any further problems. All of this durability does have a price. I weighed my laptop on my home scale and it weighs 5.8 pounds with a 9-cell battery. The weight does not bother me much because my backpack weighs over 20 pounds with everything but the laptop. The extra 1 pound makes a 4% difference when the laptop is added, which is insignificant.
Screen:
The screen’s maximum brightness is not bright enough and the dimmest setting is not dim enough. The screen also has problems with movies. The screen struggles to keep up with movies and it shows when small squares are a split second behind. The screen also has bad vertical viewing angles. However, the screen does not have any noticeable leakage or unevenness.
Speakers:
Useless.
Heat and Noise:
The area around the battery heats up a little while it is charging, but that is it. I often use this laptop on my lap and I have no complaints. I also do not have any noise complaints. I do not think a laptop could run any quieter because I cannot hear any noise as I am typing.
Keyboard and Touchpad:
The keyboard works as well as any laptop keyboard out there. I think it is slightly mushier than a Lenovo Thinkpad keyboard, but who cares? I can type my notes as fast as the professor can lecture.
Battery:
The Dell Latitude D630’s battery life is far better than the competition. I was not looking for long battery life, but I am so glad I chose my Latitude. I thought all of my classrooms would have outlets, but only one of my classes has them. My laptop lasts for about 6 hours with the Wi-Fi off and ambient light sensor on. I cannot name another laptop with 6 hours of battery life without a media bay battery. I am curious how long the D630’s battery life is with its media bay battery.
Conclusion:
I do not have any regrets. My laptop struggles to run even less demanding video games, but it is durable enough to survive four years of graduate school, long enough battery life to survive 5.5 hours of continuous use and has a keyboard that can keep up with my lectures. I cannot name another laptop with these properties.
Pros:
Incredible battery life
Near flawless keyboard
Great build quality
Easy to clean screen
Cons:
Useless speakers. They are terrible even for laptop speakers.
I think the screen is too dim or too bright depending on where I am using my laptop.
It cannot run movies smoothly
Low quality video card combined with low quality screen means it cannot run demanding video games.

 

Sounds like a good laptop for everything except entertainment-related use.

 

Good review...I've had my D630 and agree with almost everything you say.

Only thing I find different in my laptop is that my screen is plenty bright on the brightest setting. I do have a WXGA 1280 x 800 screen--don't know if that makes a difference.

I haven't tried to play any movies on it, so I don't know how it performs there.

I really do agree about the worthless speakers!! In fact, I'm pretty sure there is only on speaker on board. It does sound pretty bad. I've used headphones with my laptop though, and the sound quality is good with those.

All in all, I'm very happy with my D630--and I have no regrets about my choice.

dordale

 

Good overview.

5.8lbs is a bit surprising with the 9 cell though. I believe Dell advertises the laptop at 4.3lbs or so, but that's with the 6 cell and the travel module. That's almost a 35% weight spread for adding two things!

The D630 only has a single mono speaker. Added with the sub-par display (sounds like refresh rate is very low) I'd imagine multimedia's not its forte. I was considering the D630 quite strongly, but I'd never heard about any display ghosting issues before you review here. Glad I didn't go for it.

The M1330 can easily do 5.5 hours with Wifi on and browsing the internet. So there are other laptops with good battery life out there.

 

I have to agree that the speaker is cruddy. I think it is fine when you are on the go, but for when I am at home, I'm looking for a small, good quality 2.1 speaker system for it.

I cannot say it enough, but I also agree that the build quality is great.

Best,
Ilham

 

i dont have the ghosting problem on my d630, im on the AUO display.

i've mainly watched animation...

 

Hmmm... I'm not sure this is a screen problem; it sounds like it may be a problem with the video card. Have you tried using the drivers from laptopvideo2go.com? Some people here have reported greatly improved performance with this card with these drivers.

Buy some externals!

Anyway... thanks for a great review.

 

I get over 4 hours out of the 6 cell in my D630, and have yet to need the media bay battery I bought. I second the buld & keyboard quality, as I "fourth" the crappy speaker. I bought mine in the first week of release and have had no problems. The fingerprint reader software does suck, however, but that's a minor (not to mention third party) issue. I have the matte wxga+ LGP screen and it's magnificent. I have a Compaq V2000 almost identical in size, and the D630 feels like it weighs practically twice as much. I have the x3100 integrated graphics, but use the machine for biz, so it's not an issue.

Very good review. I've had mine for 2 or 3 months and pretty much agree in total with what you had to say.