D630 Review By Cnet - 8.2/10, Editor's Choice

Cnet has finally reviewed the Latitude D630.

Here is the summary:

The good: Strong performance; long-lived nine-cell battery; sturdy construction; bright display; comfortable keyboard; corporate-level security, including smart card reader; WWAN available as an option; lengthy three-year warranty.

The bad: Somewhat heavy for a thin-and-light notebook; native screen resolution makes icons and text look small; fingerprint reader decreases mouse button size.

The bottom line: Corporate users can't go wrong with the Dell Latitude D630, which integrates Intel's latest mobile platform with a business-friendly feature set and lengthy extended battery.

Complete review:
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-latitude-d630/4505-3121_7-32445398.html?tag=pdtl-list

I am really excited about the D630. I hope it is delivered to me by early next week.

 

Nice review, although isn't it kind of goofy for CNET to compare the battery life of the Dell with the 9-cell battery with competing laptops with just their regular standard batteries?

Just doesn't seem very useful; would be a more useful benchmark if they showed how the battery life compared with those other laptops with their equivalent extended batteries.

 

I agree with you zadillo

Infact the PCMAG review was also with a 9 cell battery.

I have ordered a 6 cell battery. Let's see how it performs..

 

It is reasonable to assume that a 6 cell battery will give a little less than 2/3rds of the run time of a 9 cell battery, which gives just over 3 hours of DVD playback. That's about the same as I can manage with the 12.1" Samsung Q35, which can also just about reach 5 hours under light use with a fairly dim backlight.

It looks as if the mobile 865 chipset and GPU does give power savings compared with the previous platform.

John

 

CNet reviews are essentially useless. The D620 only got a 6.9 in their review, this being almost the same thing, got a much higher score and EC. Seems kind of like the MacBook a while back (7.2 -> 8.2EC after the Merom bump). Inconsistency.

 

I am glad to see a good review, but CNET's reviews are too random to even take with a grain of salt. I think CNET's reviews are worthless.

 

The performance of 9 cell battery has impressed the reviewer the most and it seems quite a lot weightage has been given to that in the overall score. The performance (as compared to D620) was always expected to be better. The quality of the screen has also improved.

It would be interesting to see how the consumers rate the machine.

 

The simple lesson here is that when CNET brings down the hammer, the companies start coughing up the $$$.

 

I ordered my system much before CNET reviewed it. In any case, consumer reviews are more important for me rather than reviews by tech sites/magazines.

Although I must add here that the PCMAG review of the D630 (dated 9th May) did influence me a bit coz that was the ONLY review available when I ordered.

This is the first time I have gone for a system which has not been tried and tested by the consumers. I had almost made up my mind on the D620 but after reading the customers' experiences with its screen quality, I dropped the idea.

I hope D630 won't dissapoint me.

 

How is a high res screen a con?

 

Well, the explanation is normally that if the screen is too high res, text, icons, etc. can be harder to read under normal conditions.

For an extreme example, imagine a 1920x1200 res on a 12" screen.

 

However, they rated the 1440x900 on the Thinkpad T61 as highly readable.

There's also some inconsistencies in the comparison.
I see that they compared the Dell Latitude D630 with Thin-and-Light models, however the Thinkpad T61 is compared with mainstream models.

 

Well, that's part of the magic of having different reviewers rate laptops. I imagine that if whoever rated that T61 wrote the D630 review, they probably wouldn't have complained about the screen resolution.

 

Ya I agree, however the rating system really doesn't tell much.

It would be better if there was more consistencies between reviews, so as to help customers select models better.

 

I agree.

Homer Jay Thompson

 

At least against the T61, both were using extended cell batteries. (Granted the T61 wasn't using the max 7 cell, but instead the 6 cell one, it is still more than the regular 4-cell.) Regardless, battery life seems to be quite spectacular.

One of the biggest problems with the original D620 was battery life, so taking into account the huge improvement in that category, I can see how they improved the score - although as you said, it's a pretty big jump. Then again, compared to the T61, which got a 7.6, the Dell has much better battery life (both are using extended batteries) and a lower price. So it should at least get higher than a 7.6 if you compare it that way.

I will note some interesting things from that D630 review. They stated the speakers were actually half decent and they list the speakers as stereo speakers in the specs.

As well, they said the WXGA+ screen is very bright. Wasn't low brightness a problem with the D620 WXGA+ screens? Seems like the two biggest problems of the D620 were solved in the D630. (battery life + screen)

 

As per the specs mentioned in the user's guide, there is only one speaker in the system.

 

Yeah, exactly. I was pretty sure it was mono as well, but somehow CNet got that wrong...

 

Well, they tested the D620 with a 4 cell and the D630 with a 9 cell, perhaps that could account for (most of) the difference? I mean going from Yonah to Santa Rosa probably improved battery life, but not by *that* much. I can't comment on brightness though.

The T61 has a better keyboard and better build quality. Plus, they tested the T61 with a 6 cell, and the D620 with a 9 cell. The Dell would be within half an hour of the T61 if it had the 6 cell.

The D630 has a mono speaker, not stereo. This simply shows that they didn't actually listen to the speakers and wrote something based of the (incorrect) spec sheet....

 

CNET should have compared the largest battery available for both systems. This means a comparison of the 7-cell battery to the 9-cell battery. The 7-cell battery would still fall short of the 9-cell battery. My biggest problem with Lenovo is its inadequate battery selection. Why does Lenovo not offer a larger 9 or 12 cell battery? If I wanted a small 6 or 7 cell battery, it should be smaller than a 9 or 12 cell battery. However, the Lenovo battery is only 7 cells and still manages to stick out of the back.

 

The T series does at least let you use a second battery in the media bay (or whatever they call it), right?

 

So does the Dell Latitude series. That is not uncommon for business laptops.

 

They used the 6 cell with the D620. Still as you said, Santa Rosa by itself probably didn't much of a difference. Sounds like they just tell it as they see it and didn't take into account the (obviously) larger battery.

The bottom line is, the 6-cell sticks out on the T61 as well. If you want a fair fight, you'd have to compare the 6 cell Dell to a 4 cell T61 (which I shudder to think about).

I wouldn't be so certain about the build quality either. I've played around with T60s and D620s. I can't say the D620s are any worse than the T60 at least. I don't know if the T61 is built better than the T60 as I've never seen a T61 yet.

 

I think the comparison should have been between the 9 cell Dell battery and the 7 cell Lenovo battery.

 

And also a comparison between both 6 cell batteries. That way we could compare between the actual battery life difference between two models and judge fairly based on whichever system performs better in the battery life category with similar cells.

A comparison between max battery would consist of the largest in their category, that wouldn't really show the performance of the system in battery draining.
But it would tempt people who are looking for long battery life.

 

Remember a Dell 6-cell battery does not equal a Lenovo 6-cell battery. The Dell 6-cell battery is smaller and does not stick out from the laptop.

 

Yeah, but I think he getting at the efficiency fact - does the Dell actually consume less power or is it the larger battery making up the difference.

That would be interesting to know.

 

I agree. It is a shame that Lenovo does not produce a large enough battery to compete with the Dell 9-cell battery. I am curious if the HP 12-cell battery has even more life.