Dell Latitude D420 video

I'll go ahead and post some "raw" video of the D420 I have in hand in case anyone is interested in taking a peak. Sorry about the annoying fire engine noise in the background of the video -- stupid NYC, not a second goes by without emergency vehicles blazing by.

Link to Dell Latitude D420 video

 

Well, it seems to handle the screen saver nicely, so no performance problems there.

 

Excellent, I collect mine in 2 days looking forward to that.

A quick question, how does it feel in the hand against the x1 if you have handled both? Having had the x300 and then x1 im curious as to where it sits form wise in your opinion.

 

It's a little heavier than the X1 of course, but much more solid feeling. The keyboard is much better than both of those too. I'm very impressed with the build.

 

That might be good for you one of these days.

 

Sounds good, hopefully i get the core duo, it was requested but the last i heard Dell Malaysia were dicking around saying they couldnt spec it even though most of their stuff comes from there..lol

 

I don't know how you do it. I wouldn't be able to sleep with all of those sirens.

The new latitudes look so professional. Too bad that the Inspirons don't look like that.

 

So, abaxter, what about performance?
Honestly, is the harddrive the bottleneck or the processor. Is it worth to invest in the Duo version for every days tasks?

J

 

The hard drive is the bottleneck in the D420 because it is a 1.8" model - very slow and expensive. Saves power at the cost of performance. Of course, if you get the ULV Core Solo U1400, that will also be slow, but only if you use intensive apps. Opt for the dual-core U2500 if possible. Remember, it's an ultraportable and not a desktop replacement.

 

LOL As I was reading this a police cae went by. I am also in NYC

 

With the Core Solo it's certainly worse than the D410. The 1.8" hard drive is the same as that used in the 60GB iPod, it's this one from Toshibba http://www.toshiba-europe.com/storage/pci.asp?page=PCI&nav=ISH_PRS&model=MK6008GAH&ptype=HDD18

The hard drive seek performance isn't exactly grand and the Super Pi time best I could get was 2m 11s throttling the processor using Notebook Hardware Control.

 

Fire engines in New York are like birds in the trees in Oklahoma. After a while you are so used to them that you don't hear them anymore.

 

That's what I was afraid of. I'm disappointed that they took away the power of the D4XX line. You just confirmed my fear. I guess I can go up to the D620 since its been slightly slimmed down. Don't know if its going to be too much of a step up in size/weight from my D400 though.

 

Looking forward to the review--also sent you a question regarding your unit via a PM...

 

For my D420, Dell will be sending a technician over to replace the Core Solo processor with a Core Duo one (you can do that?). That was because we complained to them about the speed of the D420, which was substantially slower than a D410, but costs the same (corporate pricing)...

 

I need a laptop by the 24th of August. Do you think Dell will offer the Core Duo on the D420 by then, and if so, what bearing will it have on the notebook's price?

 

You can upgrade to Core Duo, sure...but it's not going to make the system faster--only multitasking will be improved in terms of responsiveness.

 

Actually, I think with the Core Duo they have to use an extra fan next to the processor so I find that odd that you could just "slip in" a Core Duo and not worry about overheating.

With a Core Duo and a good amount of RAM your system performance would be enhanced, but the boot time and other more hard drive dependent tasks would still be slowish.

 

Got mine today, came with solo but that's cool. Must say build is very good with nice KB feel, overall feels solid and looks the goods.

Having an x300 i am a big fan of the media base, although this one does not hold an additional battery

Doing the format now so can't touch on performance, certainly appearance, functionality, size/weight and build are right where i wanted them.

For those who like that type of thing the bios is very detailed with plenty of configuration options of peripherals etc.

 

No, but psychologically it makes you feel better inside.

Actually, Dell is willing to supply us the D420 with Duo Core and the price remains the same as the D410. However, this agreement is verbal, not yet on black and white...

 

A Dell engineer came over and upgraded my D420 from a Core Solo to a Core Duo. He had to replace the whole motherboard because the CPU was soldered into it. I was expecting at least a Core Duo 1.66 GHz T2300 but instead they replaced it with a Core Duo 1.2 GHz U2500.

No benchmarks available yet because there were some problems with the new motherboard, in which the system keeps hanging and getting Blue Screen. We'll have to wait until the technician returns tomorrow morning...

PS. I noticed that the D420 cannot boot up to a USB thumbdrive. Anyone experienced the same problem?

And no, the U2500 is the best the D420 can upgrade to! Bummer!

 

A picture comparison between the D410 and the D420:

(Top = D420, Bottom = D410)

Back:


Left Side:


Right Side:


Front #1 (Left = D410, Right = D420):


Front #2 (Left = D410, Right = D420):



Personally, I prefer the D410's 4:3 12.1" TFT much more than the D420's 16:10 12.1" TFT. D420's screen is bad for the eyes of the 40+ year old users (Presbyopia)...the fonts are just too small.

 

While I prefer widescreen, I kinda like the looks of the D410 better. There is no doubt that it is bigger though.

 

I can safely say that the 12.1" screen is too small for general use, but that's the price you pay for portability. After lugging around a 14.1" laptop for an entire semester, I'd say a 12.1" ultraportable is a nice compromise for a 3lb unit versus a 5.25+ lb thin-and-light. This is exactly why I find the MacBook's 13.3" screen disapointing at 5.2 lbs--they could have managed 14.1" at that weight.

Anyway, hopefully I'll have my review finished very soon.

 

More pictures, now include the IBM Thinkpad X60:

Front: (Top = D410, Middle = X60, Bottom = D420)


Left Side (Top = D410, Middle = X60, Bottom = D420)


Back (Top = D410, Middle = X60, Bottom = D420)


Right Side (Top = D410, Middle = X60, Bottom = D420)


(Left = D420, Middle = X60, Right = D410)



I think our mind's pretty much made up...most likely the X60, since it costs pretty much the same as the D420 but it comes with a T2300 Core Duo, 12.1" 4:3 TFT, among other things. The X60 could become out corporate standard...

 

Hi guys,

I think your discussion of d420 vs d410 misses the point.

I think it is more adequate to compare d420 with latitude x1:
both are light weight, 12" wxga, with ULV processor inside.

In my opinion, the follow up of d410 is rather XPS 1210
(it also replaces the former inspiron 700m).

 

heh...we know.

Dell bashing is more fun than praising. What better way than to grab Dell by the balls so forcing them to lower their corporate pricing

In reality, blame it on Dell for naming it wrong. They should have call it the X2 or the X310 instead....

btw, a few other corporations I know are having a field day on Dell, trying to bargain a better price. This "mis-match" comparison with the D420 against the D410 was one of their bargaining chip as well. As if that wasn't bad enough for Dell, Lenovo is coming up strong with major discounts on the X60, directly competing with the D420. All in all, Dell is the underdog and they need to offer a much better price than Lenovo due to its inferior product. We'll see... 5,000 laptops at stake here and that's just us. One other company I know has 40,000 laptops on the bargaining table!

 

I may have won smth thanks to you guys while purchasing X1 from Dell outlet recently.