Dell D420 fanless?

I read some specs of the upcoming D420 in this post:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1407994&postcount=4

One question that is not answered concerns the heat management. Does anyone know if the D420 will be fanless like the X1?

 

I have no idea but looking at those speeds it wouldn't suprise me if it was fanless.

 

As far as I heard it is fanless...

 

I asked Dell about this, their response was (coming from a product designer for the D420) the Single Core version of the D420 (available today) will be fanless. The dual core will have a small heat pipe on top of the processor so it is not technically fanless.

 

Thanks for asking Dell. I assume that a heat pipe implies that no fan or other noise-producing element will be used.

 

What I do not understand is why they are making a computer that can't compete with last years notebooks. It SUCKS. Who cares about a fan anyhow?

Maybe the price will be very low?

 

The processors in these aren't designed for performance, they are designed for battery life. Can your notebook get 7 hours of battery life? Does it weight start at 3lbs? Is it extremely portable?

 

As a university student, i definitely care about size and weight more than pure power. Ideally I would like to carry my notebook to school daily, but since my notebook has a short battery life, it means i need my ac adapter as well. 5 additional pounds on a 25+ minute walk to school is quite a bit. And consider 90% of the time im not doing any processor intensive task, i dont mind waiting a couple more minutes to complete a task for that 10% of the time.

with all that said, im quite interested in the d420, especially if it is fanless, but a dual core would be much nicer for me as i do a lot of multi-tasking

 

they're not competing with most notebooks...they're competing with other ultraportables which means that the buyers of these value extreme portability and battery life much more than just sheer performance. The new Fujitsu 10" P series notebooks are also fanless and offer great battery life.

 

I guess Latitude X1 also had a heat pipe but it was classified as fanless.
Fan is a rotating thing, right?

 

I wonder which of of two - X1 or d420 - will perform better in terms of the battery life?

I bet X1 is better because its ULV consumes up to 5W and the new ones
from the Yonah generation take up to 7W. Moreover, the ULV of X1 can be
still undervolded below specs (like 15-20% below) which the undervolting of
Yonahs at the lowest speedstep is not possible by Intel's setup.

I think that the new generaltion of subnotebooks using ULV Yonah processors absolutely needs a special option which allows to reduce the FSB by, say, 20-30%, to gain an extra battery life when needed.

 

Dell is rather vague in the description of the battery life of the D420, with statements like "works harder, longer." The precise number of hours the 4-, 6- and 9-cell batteries can last is nowhere to be found.

EDIT: I found something on the battery life. Go to dell.com, click on Notebooks - Small Business, click on 12.1" under "Screen Size" in the left column, place a checkmark next to the D420 and at least one other model, and click on Compare. The next page shows "Battery Life: 5 hrs". For comparison, the X1 is rated at 3.1 hours.

 

The default small battery of X1 is two times smaller (well, I rather would have to check the specifiactions and present the exact numbers instead of relying on my memory) that the default standard battery of D420. If so, it explains the difference between 3h for X1 and 5h for D420.

If someone has time, please check the capacities of the respective batteries and post here!