Dell Latitude D420 Released (pics, specs)

Dell todayreleased the Latitude D420 ultraportable notebook as athinner and lighterupdate to the older Latitude D410. The Latitude D420 is a 12.1" notebook weighing as little as 3.0 lbs and delivering up to a claimed battery life of 7+ hours when using an IntelCore Solo low voltage processor.

Dell Latitude D420 (view large image)

Following are some basic specs for the D420:

• Processor: Core Solo Ultra Low Voltage processors (available immediately), Core Duo available late summer
• Weight: Starting at 3.0 lbs with 4-cell battery, 3.17lbs with 6-cell battery and 3.56lbs with a 9-cell extended life battery
• Wireless: 802.11 a/b/g and is 802.11n ready, Verizon or Cingular integrated WWAN in the U.S. and Vodafone WWAN in France, Germany and the U.K.
• Screen: 12.1" widescreen
• Ports: 3 USB 2.0, IEEE 1394, SD card slot, Smart Card reader, Wi-Fi Catcher, Biometric fingerprint reader (optional), PCMCIA, headphone jack, microphone jack
• Keyboard: Full size keyboard with touchpad and pointing stick
• Optical Drive: No integrated optical drive, optional MediaBase

The Latitude D420 is essentially a mash up of the ultra thin and light Latitude X1 and the heavier and more beefy Latitude D410. The D420 adopts the same aesthetics and looks as the D410, but has slimmed down and lost weightso it has asimilar form factor to the X1 in terms of weight and dimensions. Both the D410 and X1 will be replaced by the new D420.

Dell Latitude front profile view (view large image)

Initially the D420 will be available from Dell.com with just the Intel Core Solo processor at a starting price of $1,379. More processor options such as the Core Duo will become available towards the end of the summer.

The D420 can be as light as 3.0lbs when configured with the smallest battery, a 4-cell. Battery life will obviously be less with such a battery. The thickness andweight of the D420 is kept down due to the fact there is no built-in optical drive. A MediaBay the D420 slots into or an external D-bay drive can be connected to the laptop and provide for an optical drive such as a DVD burner.

Latitude D420 wi-fi catcher button, this can be used to detect wireless (view large image)

Thecasing and looksof the D420 will be the same as that of the larger 14.1" D620. A charcoal grey case, with dark accents and sturdy magnesium alloy build. The keyboard is full size and there is an integrated pointing stick. Travel warriors will rejoice at the sturdy build and usable keyboard of this small laptop.

Pricing and Availability:

The Dell D420 will be available starting at $1,397 at Dell.com

Related Links:

• Dell Latitude D410 Review
• Dell Latitude X1 Review
• Dell Latitude D620 Review

 

And there it is right on time. =)

Thanks for supplying Andrew.

 

The D420 is just what I have been waiting for and I am looking forward to the first reviews to see how the performance compares to other recent notebooks. As I write these lines the D420 is not yet on Dell's website but I assume that Andrew's announcement means it will show up soon. I plan to wait for the ULV Core Duo model but I hope "late summer" doesn't mean August.

 

And yet it still doesn't have a **** optical drive.

 

No bluetooth?

Almost the perfect laptop.

 

That'd be a cool idea. A bluetooth optical drive.

 

I think I saw somewhere they have the 1.8" hard drives which mean 4200RPM speed only. Booo! Certainly a handsome notebook though.

 

Looks nice! A little on the expensive side though.

 

Thanks for the update. 12" laptops are really surfacing this season. Right now though the top of my list is the upcomming Acer Ferrari 1000.

 

Nice, but the second pic showing the right side is not the D420, but the D410 right side...

 

very perceptive, I'll defend myself by saying that the images were acquired from Dell. Shame on me as an editor though

(I removed it)

 

It does have Bluetooth, I forgot to mention that.

It's available on Dell now http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/latit_d420?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

 

long live the X60 !!! :buyIBM:

i would definitely choose the x60 over the D420... i think i do not need the optical drive as this was made to be portable, meaning you have to use this with other portables (flash drives, ultranav built in)

though the pics are nice, i still vote for the x60

 

what core solo/duo 2 processor do you guys think dell is going to upgrade to at the end of summer?

im hoping it would be duo of some sort , as i multi-task a lot

 

How thick is the D420?

 

According to the website of Dell, exactly 1.0".

 

Could you please provide the link to the size? I can't seem to find it on Dell. Thanks

 

It seems like only the Gateway NX100 and Lenovo X60 support 2.5" hard drives.

 

Go to the page http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/latit_d420, click "Product Details", and then "Ultra-Portability".

I also found this datasheet listing the dimensions: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/corporate/environ/Lat_D420.pdf: 29.5cm x 20.98cm x 2.54cm (11.6" x 8.3" x 1").

 

Averatec 10" model (1050?) and a little known but beautiful 10"/1.1kg Amoi T31
do support 2,5" drives.

What is the screen resolution of D420? 1280x800 or 1280x768?

I see no real advantages of the current version of D420 with 1GHz
Core Solo over Latitude X1 with 1,1GHz Pentium M.
I think this notebook will be even hotter than X1 and have smaller battery life
compared with X1. The only would be advantage over X1 is the presence of PCMCIA slot (Amoi T31 also has one).

The Core Duo ULV version may be more interesting, though.

 

any pics of this with the 9 cell battery? site says it sticks out .9in from the front....

 

I cannot offer you a photo of the D420 but have a look at the first picture in this review of the D410. You can see the battery sticking out at the front.

 

thanks for the link...

 

I'm sure people aren't going to agree with me about the new D420 but...

This notebook shouldnt be named D4XX just because the outside looks similar. It is just an upgrade from the X1. The D4XX series has always been in between an ultraportable and a thin-and-light notebook. It was never very light compared to other ultraportables, but it allowed for faster processors, while still making it lighter than the D6XX series. If this notebook is suppose to replace both, they should at least let the user select a regular core duo processor rather than the slow ULV processor. There is now a gap in between the 3 lb D420 and the 5 lb D620.

I understand the the ULV processor increase battery life and decreases heat, but my D400 is much faster (other than FSB) and I get about 3 - 4 hours of battery life. This is plenty for a lot of users. If only Dell gave you the option to select between the two. Anyway, I really would like to see the actual battery life that reviews say it has instead of Dell.

It appears they will not be giving us the option to select performace Core Duo chips since the Intel Chipset is the 945GM S. This chipset can only use the ultra low voltage processors and is designed for slim notebooks. I doubt Dell will replace the chipset anytime soon and they will most likely maintain the ULV processors for battery life. Seems like the best Duo ULV proccessor that intel has created is the U2500 which is only 1.20 Ghz with a 533 FSB. Maybe Merom will allow for faster proccessors, but who knows when the ULV versions will be released. Its just too bad.

I would like to upgrade, but increasing from a D400 to a D620 is about a 1 lb jump and the thickness and width increases. I'm not sure if its worth it. I've had multiple Dells but it looks like i might have to go for an IBM x60 (although the trackpoint is going to be fun to get use to).

Any comments about the current chipset and Intel's plans for faster processors for the GMS chipset? Anyone think Dell will beable to fit the GM chipset in the notebook instead?

 

Could you please post some benchmarks comparing the D400 and the D420 to support this statement? Thanks.

 

There are not benchmarks out for the D420 as of yet, but clearly the ULV processor does not perform much better than the X1 ULV processor from the benchmarks done on the new gateway ultraportable. Check them out at Cnet.com

I know that the D400 has been faster than the X1, so this means it would be faster than the D420. The downside is the D400 is a pound heavier and slightly thicker.

Are you telling me that benchmarks from a 1.06 Ghz processor with only 533 Mhz FSB will be better than a 1.7 Ghz processor with 266 Mhz FSB? I highly doubt it, but even if you want a better comparison....what about the D410's 1.8 Ghz processor with a 400 Mhz FSB? I heard the Core chips do not increase speed clock for clock. You can't tell me thats not a huge drop off in processing power....

 

I recently got a D420 solo to replace my aging X300 and am not quite sure that I love it. I do love it externally! But, it feels much slower, which I am dealing with, but not enjoying.... Not sure if it's the slower hard drive or the ULV processor. Any thoughts on whether the duo will be significantly faster, or if the 4200 hard drive is just (yawn) slowing this thing down?

 

Your feeling is right; the D420 is substantially slower than its predecessor, the D410. The following are some benchmark performed by my team 2 weeks ago. Although the benchmarks we used do not represent the kind of applications we see in a corporate environment but it does give you some idea as to how the D420 performs compare with the D410 (and the IBM Thinkpad X60 in additional, which was there to compare with the D410) for general small business or home usage. Once we find time, we may have to test it on Sysmark or other application-based benchmarks...

Column 1: Dell D420 (1.06 GHz Duo Solo, 512MB, 1.8" 4200rpm HDD, XP SP2)
Column 2: Lenovo X60 (1.66 Duo Core, 512MB, 2.5" 5400rpm SATA HDD, XP SP2)
Column 3: Dell D410 (1.73 GHz Sonoma, 512MB, 2.5" 5400rpm HDD, XP SP2)



My teams have repeatly performed many of these tests and the results appear to be quite consistent as shown on this chart. However, do not make judgement yet - wait for other people's benchmark results...