Dell Latitude D531 Review

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The Dell Latitude D531 is a business notebook for the price conscious. As such, some trade offs are made in order to reduce the price. Essentially, you get a slightly heavier notebook with less customizable options. Here are some of the differences between the D531 series and the D830/D630 series:

• Turion X2 processors instead of Core 2 Duo
• Approximately half a pound heavier (when comparing the 14.1” models)
• No option for dedicated GPUs
• No option for a touchpoint
• No option for matte screen for highest resolution screen (15.4” WXGA+)
• No option to go higher than 120GB for HD and no solid state disk option
• No option for a finger print reader

Specifications

Below are the specifications of the D531 as reviewed:

• Processor: AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 (2.00 Ghz)
• Hard Drive: Hitachi 120GB SATA HD 5400 RPM
• Memory: 2.0GB DDR2-667MHZ, 2 DIMMS (4GB Max)
• Graphics: Integrated ATI x1270
• Display: 15.4” WXGA+ “TrueLife” (250 nits) (14.1&quot; screen is also an option)
• Battery: 9-Cell (85 WHr)
• Adapter: 65W power supply
• Wireless Card: Dell wireless 1505 draft-N card
• Optical Drive: Optiarc 8x DVDRW AD-5540A
• Ports: Four USB 2.0, one Firewire, headphone out, microphone in, s-video, modem, ethernet, VGA, serial port, PCMCIA slot
• OS: Windows XP Pro SP2
• Dimensions:
  • Height: 35.3mm/1.39&quot;
  • Width: 361mm/14.2&quot;
  • Depth: 262.6mm/10.34&quot;

Design and Build

The Latitude D531 has a very simple design. The two-tone black and grey casing is mostly grey on the exterior. I find the design rather refreshing compared to the horribly bland looks of HP and Lenovo's business notebooks. Some say that the Latitude is a bit too flashy for a business notebook because of of the greyish silver, but it is more grey than silver and doesn't have the luster that would make it stand out. I appreciate how they made the latch a shiny gun metal.

Dell Latitude D531 (view large image)

Dell Latitude D531 top view (view large image)

The build quality is good in general. The LCD is very solid -- I was unable to produce any ripples in the screen even when I applied excessive force. The palmrest also had negligible flex. However, there are some points of weakness. There was noticeable flex on the upper left hand corner above the keyboard, and the plastic that surrounds that left hinge felt loose. Furthermore, I was a bit uncomfortable with the way the battery jiggled when it was attached.

Input and Output Ports

On the left side, you have the headphone out, microphone in, and firewire ports.

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On the right side, you have two USB ports.

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On the back side, you have two USB, S-video, ethernet, modem, serial, and VGA ports.

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Some ports that are missing are a media card reader and some sort of DVI/HDMI port. That said, few budget notebooks have these extras. 

Video Tour

For those that prefer watching instead of reading, here's a quick video tour of the Dell Latitude D531:

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Keyboard and Touchpad 

Generally speaking, the keyboard is comfortable for typing. There is some minor flex on the far right side where the enter key is, but this won't hinder typing. One odd item of note: The far left side of the keyboard has a different tactile feel when typing. It feels “more hollow” on the left side and the sound it makes when you press keys is a slightly more audible thud. Most of the time it isn't too noticeable.

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The touchpad and touchpad buttons have a nice feel to them, though the touchpad buttons might feel a little mushy for some. I think it's just right because I hate stiff buttons. The scroll function on this pad works quite well. Unfortunately, I had some problems using this touchpad. My touchpad stopped working after I uninstalled video drivers despite the fact that all settings indicated the touchpad was enabled. How video drivers affect a touchpad, I will never understand. Later, my touchpad stopped tracking properly for no good reason. It was as if my system was lagging, but there was nothing running. At one point, the tap-to-click feature stopped functioning as well, though it was enabled in my touchpad properties. Hopefully, these frustrating touchpad problems are just isolated to this review unit.

Screen

The screen will be a disappointment to some. It suffers from what I assume is often referred to as “sparkle,” “shimmer,” or “graininess.” The best way to describe it is that there seems to be a layer of dust on my screen or that I am actually using a matte screen instead of glossy. Nevertheless, many users won't be able to notice this. I was not able to properly capture this phenomena.

Horizontal angles, like other notebooks, are good. 

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Surprisingly, the vertical angles were not horrible. There is darkening and lightening, but you can clearly see all text and the images are distinguishable ... though not colored correctly. Angles less than 90 degrees look better than angles greater than 90 degrees.

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The screen is sufficiently bright at 250 nits, but pales in comparison to my N3530. The backlight is not completely even as the corners of the screen are slightly darker, but this really doesn't affect normal viewing much at all. 

Fujitsu N3530 on left, D531 on right (view large image)

There also seems to be no discernable light leakage. 

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Speakers

Notebook speakers are known to be fairly mediocre. Well, these speakers are among the lower tier of notebook speakers. They are pretty bad. I'm certainly not an audiophile, but when I hear audio on this notebook it sounds like I'm listening to music on a 1920s radio. The sound seems like it's muffled and at high volumes there is a crackling noise.

Performance and Benchmarks

Here are some benchmarks to help gauge the performance of this notebook.

HDTune

HDTune measures the hard drive performance of a system.

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3DMark05 Comparison Results

3DMark05 measures graphics performance of a system

(Note: the ATI 7.5 integrated Catalyst drivers would not install on this system)

Notebook	3DMark05Score
Dell Latitude D531 (2.00GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60)	978 3DMarks 1035 w/ omega
Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T7300)	911 3DMarks
Toshiba Satellite P205-S6287 (Intel 1.73GHz T5300 + GMA 950)	559 3DMarks
HP Compaq 6515b (1.6GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52, ATI x1270)	871 3DMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB)	2,092 3DMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	2,013 3DMarks
Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400)	1,791 3DMarks
Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 256MB)	4,236 3DMarks
Alienware Aurora M-7700 (AMD Dual Core FX-60, ATI X1600 256MB)	7,078 3DMarks

 

Comparison table for PCMark05

PCMark05 measures overall performance of a system.

Notebook	PCMark05Score
Dell Latitude D531 (2.00GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60)	3,035 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T7300)	4,084 PCMarks
Toshiba Satellite P205-S6287 (Intel 1.73GHz T5300 + GMA 950)	2,981 PCMarks
HP Compaq 6515b (1.6GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52, ATI x1270)	2,420 PCMarks
Toshiba Satellite A135 (Core Duo T2250, Intel GMA 950)	3,027 PCMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	4,234 PCMarks
Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo, Intel GMA 950)	2,994 PCMarks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60, Nvidia Go 7800GTX)	5,597 PCMarks
Sony Vaio SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400)	3,637 PCMarks
Toshiba Tecra M6 (1.66GHz Intel T2300E, Intel GMA 950)	2,732 PCMarks
Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400, Nvidia Go 7400)	3,646 PCMarks
Sony VAIO FE590 (1.83GHz Core Duo)	3,427 PCMarks

 

Super Pi Comparison Results

Super Pi is run to 2-million digits of accuracy to test processor speed.

Notebook	Time
Dell Latitude D531 (2.00GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60)	1m 41s
Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T7300)	59s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo T7200)	1m 03s
Toshiba Satellite P205-S6287 (1.73 GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T5300)	1m 24s
Toshiba Satellite A205 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo)	1m 34s
HP Compaq 6515b (1.6GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52)	2m 05s
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T2400)	59s
Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo)	1m 02s
Toshiba A100 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo)	1m 29s
HP dv5000z (2.0GHz Sempron 3300+)	2m 02s

 

Wprime Results:  43.468 sec 32 M 

In general, the notebook doesn't feel much different from my N3530 (T2300 1.5GB, 80GB 5400 rpm HD) other than Windows seems to boot up faster. Although its performance in super pi (single core performance) seems a bit lacking, its dual core performance is similar to that of the T2500.

Battery Life and Adapter

Battery life is where the D531 shines. With the screen at full brightness, and doing word processing and internet surfing, I can get five hours or more. With the screen at 3/7 brightness, I can pump out over six and a half hours. On full load, I got about one hour and 40 minutes.

As for the adapter, I'm not too fond of how it was made. There are two other design flaws (at least in my opinion) with the adapter's  plugs. First, the part that plugs into the adapter from the outlet oddly sticks out from the top of the adapter. It makes it much easier to accidentally pull the plug out. For example, it can get stuck on the bottom of your couch and will fall out if you pull the cord closer to you. I almost accidentally pulled the plug out when I tripped over the bulging plug.

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The second problem is the shape of the plug that goes into the computer. It is straight (in contrast to the L-shaped plugs you tend to see more often) and sticks out about an inch and half from the notebook, making it an easy target to get hit or snagged. If it does get hit or snagged, it will bend the pin inside the adapter port or loosen the adapter port from the motherboard, which may create problems with charging in the future. I have had this happen to three notebooks I've used in the past. One item of note is that the plug fits somewhat loosely into the adapter port. I had the plug fall out a few times without even knowing it.

Notice how the couch cushion very slightly pushes up on the adapter plug (view large image)

Heat and Noise

The heat and fan noise output is another bright spot. The CPU idles between 37-42 degrees celsius. Load temperatures during Orthos stress test get up to 65 degrees. During this time, only the left portion of the bottom gets somewhat uncomfortable due to the presence of the hard drive, ram, and maybe the CPU. The left part of keyboard warms up only slightly. 

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Fan noise is almost inaudible for basic usage. I initially thought that the fan was not on, but when I put my hand near the vent I felt the fan pushing air. Even on full load the fan is only slightly noticeable and is not bothersome at all. 

Nevertheless, this notebook does have one rather noisy component. The included Hitachi hard drive is rather annoying. It makes a very audible clicking. On top of that, it emits a screech that can be occasionally heard when you scroll on a webpage or document. I figured out that the whine was from the hard drive when I heard it during the entire time I was running the HDTune benchmark. This is likely an issue with only this hard drive, Dell would replace the hard drive if this happened to be a system you owned.

Wireless

There is not much I can say about the wireless other than the fact that it works. I get excellent signal strength and good download speeds. Moreover, it seems to connect a little bit faster when I boot up Windows or get out of hibernate/sleep.

Software

The D531 comes with a bit of bloatware pre-installed (e.g. Norton, Google Desktop/Toolbar), but it isn't too excessive. I could easily remove these unnecessary programs (other than perhaps Norton) within a few minutes. Also, it seems to use up just as much ram (without Norton but with other factory-state programs running) as my Fujitsu does (it came with virtually no bloatware).

Conclusion

My general impression of this notebook is neither wholly positive nor negative. It has little problems yes, but such things might be expected for a budget notebook you're paying $799 for. The build quality is good overall and better than many consumer notebooks, so you're getting a bargain there in terms of price. Disregarding the graininess issue, the screen quality was above average, having better viewing angles and brightness, compared to other business notebooks such as a ThinkPad T60 series. If you're deploying Latitude notebooks for your workforce the Latitude D531 is compatible in terms of docking station solutions, security solutions and offering legacy ports such as the serial port. If you upgraded to the Latitude D630 or D830 you could certainly get better performance with the Intel Santa Rosa platform and have a lighter notebook travel weight, but if your IT department is on a budget and still needs a few extra notebooks the Latitude D531 will fit the bill -- it offers a good usability and performance to price ratio.

Pros

• Appealing design for a business notebook
• Quiet fans
• Generally solid build quality
• Exceptional battery life

Qualms

• Loose battery
• Different tactile feel on left side of keyboard
• Poorly designed adapter plugs
• Poor speaker quality
• Some bloatware

Cons

• Grainy screen
• Haywire touchpad at times
• Loud hard drive

 

Good review!

 

Grainy screen. Remind me of last year D620.

That mean even thought it look the same as the D630, the screen is not that good as the D630?

 

I only see one firewire port?

And that expansionslot, is it PCMCIA (PC-Card) or is it Expresscard?

A 15.4 inch and only one expansionslot, what a shame. To the right is plenty of space.

 

i meant ports as in headphone in (port), microphone out (port), firewire (port)....i.e. not multiple firewire ports but a listing of different kind of ports. sorry if that was unclear.

and yes, it only has a PCMCIA card.

 

$799 is a bargain for that notebook, great review!

 

Thats because you need to "mod" the drivers first to support specific OEM mobile chipsets. Use ModTool -> http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool/

Aren't all (or most of) Dell 90W power adapters and plugs the same design (straight, not L-shaped)? If so, this is the first review I've seen someone mention it

The omission of the ExpressCard slot over D820/830 seems to be purely a cost-cutting measure.

 

it's kinda dumb that amd/ati can't make a driver that is compatible to a chipset that they themselves make, and have to rely on third-party software to make it work.

as for the adapter, most people are fine with it. but for some reason, i have had a really horrible track record with adapter plugs bending the inside pins and having the adapter port slightly dislodge from the motherboard (2 dells and 1 clevo to be exact). and after seeing that most notebook companies have already adopted the l-shape plug, i just don't see why dell can't change the design to prevent somewhat major damage. at one point in the past, i had to tape the adapter plug in specific ways in order to get it to charge the notebook, until it wouldn't charge at all. but this was after 3-4 years of usage...if you're one of those people who upgrade technology every couple of years, it shouldn't be a big deal. hence it only being a "qualm".

does the dell d830 have the express card slot? the dell d630 doesn't. i think that a lot of business users have many cards that are for pcmcia card slots, with little or no equivalents as express cards, thus the slow adoption of the express slot.

this is a completely different screen from the d630. it is 15.4", WXGA+ GLOSSY. so you shouldn't take a look at this screen and assume that the d630 screen will be similar

 

Thats the way the wind blows in the notebook graphics world. Its pretty safe to say that most laptop makers don't try too hard to keep their specific laptops' GFX drivers up to date. On the nVidia side of things laptopvideo2go.com really helps in that regard, although some versions refuse to work properly but thats a non-issue since choices are quite ample...

D830 has an ExpressCard slot.

 

The L-shaped plugs aren't much better. Quite a few HP customers have had problems with their adapters as well. The real problem is that most manufacturers are too cheap to mount the jack the right way. They simply solder the jack on, which means that the connection gets loose over time and then shorts out. The way they should be doing it is the way Lenovo and Sony do it. Instead, Lenovo and Sony connect the power jack to the motherboard using wires instead of soldering it on the board. That way, if the jack fails, it is a relatively cheap replacement, and normal use doesn't cause the jack to short out.

 

true....this a problem with a lot of ac jacks. however, i just believe that the straight jacks are more prone to damage, especially from getting hit, considering it sticks out a full 1-1.5 inches, versus .5 inches for an l-shaped plug.

 

Great review! Is the dual core CPU 65nm (got CPU-Z screenshot?)?

And from the pics, the 9-cell doesn't protrude?

Thanks!

 

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/latit/en/spec_latit_d531_en.pdf

according to that, it does use the m690t chipset. unfortunately, i no longer have the notebook anymore, so i can't tell if it has the 65nm....

 

A very good review. Did you try undervolting the CPU?

I will have to revise my thinking that AMD are way behind on the power management. 5 - 6 hours, albeit with a 9 cell battery, is good. Samsung's budget R20 with Intel CPU and ATI chipset struggles to get past 2 hours with a 4 cell battery.

John

 

the nice thing about amd cpus is that they can at least throttle down to 800 mhz (vs. 1ghz with core duos) and the voltage range is quite wide...though on the minimum voltage allowed (something ridiculous like .4v) on the lowest multiplier, the computer crashes immediately. i would have investigated undervolting, except that the fan noise was non existent, and the heat was minimal, essentially getting rid of my motivation to do it.

i think the biggest problem with amd cpus is that on high load, they use too much energy (i was a little disappointed with high load battery life...would have expected it to hit the 2 hour mark). but on low to medium load, they are at least as efficient as the core duos.

 

I just helped my pastor order a D531 to place an old inspiron he had that was stolen. He didn't require anything fancy, so I figured this was a great choice with the basic dual core model and the three year standard warranty is nice.

 

My brother's Dell Latitude did not have the same problem you have with your keyboard.
If this is a one in a 1000 chance, Im sorry that happened to you.
But it could be the one in 1000 chance that my bro got a good keyboard.

 

things like keyboard, screen quality, and even noise and heat output can vary from notebook to notebook. i would not be surprised at all if the problems i had with the keyboard was isolated to my unit. same goes for the annoying hd noise...it varies with hd manufacturer, so i wouldn't expect all models to have it.

 

The power jack design in most notebook is terrible. If the power jack fails you will have to replace the whole motherboard within warranty.

I have such accident with my Compaq notebook. The failing power jack has short circuit inside and cause horrible heat inside the jack and on the power plug. Unfortunately, the replacement cost about 300 to 500 dollars after warranty expired. So I bought a new power jack (standard part fortunately) and do the soldeing works by myself in our company's lab. It cost only few bucks for the new part and save you a lot of money.

 

My pastor got his d531 in. It looks really good in my opinion, and he likes it. Unfortunately, I realize how awful the 14.1" screen looks on the chassis, with the giant bezil around the edge. I reccomend to anyone who is thinking of purchasing this to go with the 15.4" screen option.

 

it would be nice if we could get a picture so that other d531 14.1" buyers can see what you are talking about....i mean, is it a 15.4" chassis with just a larger bezel that makes it 14.1"?

 

It is true for Inspiron 1501
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2022689&postcount=8
so perhpas it is the same for D531

 

I'll see if I can take a picture of it on sunday so you guys can see what it ends up looking like.

 

wow....that is really lame of dell. it seems to completely defeat the point of having a 14.1" system. i mean, people go for the smaller screen size to have a notebook that is smaller, less weight, and more portable...this seems to completely negate any point in choosing the 14.1" system.

thanks for the info though!

 

I agree ejl, I can't understand how could anybody prefer a 14.1" Inspiron 1501 instead of a 15.4" (well, I think 14.1 is cheaper 15 or 20 Euros, but it s not an important difference)
The photo is awful:
http://i16.ebayimg.com/07/i/000/9c/64/32de_1.JPG

I'm afraid it could be he same in D531
I like 14.1" notebooks, but only if they are samll & light of course, so I can't understand why Dell did that!!
So three is no point in buying a 14.1" D531 and if you want a cheap 14.1" business laptop I'd get an HP 6510b/6515b

Thanks for your review and comments, elf

 

Has any one found pictures of the D531 14.1 model? im looking for a cheap relatively light laptop and this looks pretty good. i was also considering the D520 but id rather a widescreen if possible.

 

I've got a feeling that it would be as big as the 15.4" version, mostly because it just wouldn't be reasonable to make a different one under the same model number.

Which of course sucks, because I would have gotten that over my 15.4, but its good enough. =]

 

what is the highest resolution on the 15.4 inch UltraSharp Wide Screen WXGA+ Display with TrueLife?

 

can D531 install window98 ?