D830 battery-life and noise

I'm starting Law School this Fall and am purchasing my first laptop. I've previously built desktops, but wanted a ready-made unit. I've been watching the Latitude series, and have recently priced this configuration currently at $1549:


PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.00GHz) 4M L2 Cache, 800Mhz Dual Core edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition, SP2, with media edit
LCD PANEL 15.4 inch Wide Screen WXGA LCD Panel edit
MEMORY 2.0GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 2 DIMMS edit
HARD DRIVE 80GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 5400RPM edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 24X CD-RW/DVD w/ Cyberlink PowerDVD™ edit
VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 140M™ edit
WI-FI WIRELESS CARD Intel® 4965 802.11a/g/n Dual-Band Mini Card edit
BLUETOOTH WIRELESS Dell Wireless® 360 Bluetooth Module for Windows XP edit
FINGERPRINT READER OPTION Standard Touchpad

I'm going to be using Office quite a bit, playing music, watching movies, and the occasional bit of WoW when/if classes allow. My main concerns are battery life, which I hear the D830 has a lot of, and noise. I don't want to be the guy in class with the helicopter idling on his desk. Is this build going to be able to meet my needs? I know the model is new, so I was hoping those with more general laptop experience could also chime in.

 

Have had my D830 for a week, sounds nice and quiet.

 

@acts837: any comments on the screen you have? brightness, contrast? and what resolution is it?

 

WXGA running native resolution of 1280 x 800. I upgraded from a D610 and couldn't be happier. Brightness/contrast is excellent. I will admit if I had it to do over again I would probably buy the WSXGA.

 

acts837, when did you order it? i ordered one today and wanna get some sort of idea of when its coming. what was your predicted/real shipping date?

 

I've had mine about 2 weeks. Very good battery life (6 cell) and very light to carry around. Noticeably lighter than my old D505.

It is also very quiet - i went with the integrated card to cut down on heat which keeps the fan from running so much. It runs great.

I love mine...!

 

I honestly don't know how the T61 people can handle it. I ordered my D830 on June 8th and it arrived on the 12th the day before it was suppose to.

 

Same here. Right now I think that the D830 is one of the best built laptops for the price

 

How many hours is very good? I'm debating whether or not to get the 6-cell or the 9-cell on one, since I believe the 9 cell is heavier.

 

Yes, How bad is the weight if I put in the 9-cell and the 6-cell into the DVD bay? I don't have a lot of walking to do. Just from class to class in the same building all day (law school) Thanks!

 

Same here my brothers D830 doesn't make a sound