Dell Latitude D620 Review (pics, specs) Discussion

The Dell Latitude D620 is a 14-inch widescreen business notebook equipped with the latest Intel Core Duo processor. The D620 replaces the D610 and provides quite an overhaul in both design change and internal components. The new industrial charcoal grey and black look of the D620 conveys its strong build, which Dell calls "Road Ready", and with a slew of available built-in wireless communications this notebook is road ready in more ways than one.

Read the full content of this Article: Dell Latitude D620 Review (pics, specs)

 

nice review! How much did that thing cost?

 

Well, prices start at $1099 for a Core Solo configuration, I got this from Dell as a loaner and I believe the price would be about $2,000 through Dell Business. They'll be up for sale in the next few hours on Dell.com

 

It really is a nice machine, and I so want one. *must hide credit cards*

One thing that bothers me is the 9 cell battery. I've never seen a laptop that has the 9 cell sticking out the front.

I also find it a bit strange that the put a PCMCIA slot on the latitudes, but the new Inspirons have the express slot I figured dell would stay consistent and put an express slot in the latitudes.

 

Putting laptops on the edge of the roofs of tall buildings is always a good idea!

 

saw this on Google News and sure enough I checked notebookreview.com

glad to see one more widescreen notebook on the market

 

Steller review! I like that Dell is able to make durable notebooks, and the looks aint bad either. The 9-cell bettery sure is wierd though. I guess it's a kind of "bonus" palm rest.

 

I believe there is an error in the pic stated:

"Pictured is the Dell D620 on the left next to a 14.1" screen ThinkPad T43, notice the lower profile of the D620 but wider body (view large image)"

 

I think they nailed everyting correctly except....the speaker. Business travelers do listen to audio and video, especially in hotel rooms. Why go down to a 3 slit mono speaker when even the thinkpad has 2 speaker ports. Was there no room in the case? I am also hoping there is some sort of PCMCIA to Express Card adpater if possible coming from some vendor in the neat future. Does anyone know if the D820 will have at least 2 speaker ports?

 

does this have that annoying earphone jack buzzing thing like the D610 did?

thx

 

yeah, you would think there'd be a little more consistency. However, with the Dell Inspiron line I think they went ExpressCard to save on costs (it's about $5 cheaper to put in Express Card versus PCMCIA believe it or no) and with the Latitude line they shied away from Express Card because they have stodgy business customers to please who like slow change -- and there's so few Express Card accessories still, i.e. no wireless adapter still for the EC. All the same, the ThinkPad has both slots and I think Dell could have done that. But they know their customer base and I'm sure their pleasing the most possible.

 

No buzzing, I tested for that as I knew it would be a question -- under the Speakers section

"The good news is that the much complained about headphone hissing noise experienced with the D610 seems to be gone with the D620. I listened to music CDs while working on the D620 and experienced no odd background noises that distorted the music, it was a clean listening experience."

 

I'm not sure on the D820 question, but should be on Dell's site real soon.

I agree, business travelers do like to unwind as well and listen to music. I guess it's a way of keeping price down or something, that battery at the front might have been the real problem in fitting another speaker and providing stereo sound.

There will be a caddy that lets you put ExpressCard/34 accessories into the PCMCIA slot, but not ExpressCard/54 (the standard size). And I would assume that since it's a caddy solution you lose the speed benefit of a pure ExpressCard/34 solution since it depends on the PCMCIA architecture still. Bummer.

 

oh brother, what a goof -- thanks for catching it, fixing that now...

 

No reference was made on the missing firewire port, which now is present on most business notebooks. I'm dissapointed.

 

They've finally changed the trackpoint cap, how was it compared to the Thinkpad's trackpoint? Will Dell be offering different cap types like Lenovo/IBM does?

It's gonna be the first widescreen 14" that offers WXGA+ screens which is definitely a good thing IMO. But D600 and D610 SXGA+ users still have to give up 150 vertical pixels for only 40 extra horizontal ones. They really aren't gaining much for side-to-side window viewing.

No S-Video is a bummer, especially since the D600 and D610 both have it and there's plenty of space at the back for one.

Battery life seems a bit low, this review at Laptop has it clocked at 4:09 with wireless on. I think they used mobilemark 2005 for battery life testing.

 

How did you get such a bad battery life when every other review is getting 4+ hours with a 6 cell?


"Battery life from the included six-cell battery was a good 4 hours and 25
minutes. The optional nine-cell battery ($99 preconfigured) should provide up to seven hours of runtime."

http://laptopmag.com/Review/Dell-Latitude-D620.htm

and..

"It seems that the D620 won't disappoint in terms of battery life either. I was able to run some initial battery tests on the unit and the system yielded a lengthy time of 4 hours and 29 minutes—not too bad for a notebook this thin and light. Expect prices to start at $1,951."

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1943729,00.asp

You can also swap out the CD drive for another 6 cell battery giving you at the very least 7 hours with 6+6cells.

Also, any reason why no one has tested a D620 with an nvidia card yet?

Appreciate the review though, nice pics

 

Another great notebook from Dell, I'd like to see Dell's screen without terrible light leakage. IBM That's pity,T43's screen much better than Dell's but overall I like design of this D620 .

 

thx for the nice review !!


a few questions:

-did you dismantle the HDD! What is the Strike zone exactly ? rubber pads around the HDD?? or just a marketing gag?

- spill proof keyboard ? is it realy sealted?

- sturdiness: did put the odd out of the bay and squeeze the housing. this was the latitude weakness for years!!

thx

 

I like the design of this notebook. The screen being "washed out" is a downer.

 

I think they went with pcmcia because there are only a small amount of express card hardware out. alot of users may still need to use wireless broadband. so their is only pcmcia card out for that.

 

Lemon. Another one that goes widescreen.

 

good point, FireWire would be nice, the T60 and other business laptops do not have this though. Strangely, it seems many ultraportables such as the x60 thinkpad are adopting this.

 

abaxter: any news on the d420??

 

The D820 has both PCMCIA & ExpressCard.

 

nice review... but notebook itself... just another Dell

 

Quick question: with the Nvidia Quatro NVs GPU - would be suitable for playing the latest graphic intensive games? TIA

 

thanks for the feedback lazybum, good observations.

The ThinkPad trackpoint is still better IMHO and the buttons for the ThinkPad are definitely better (you have the scroll button that can be used with the pointing stick for example), the mouse buttons on the Dell just didn't feel as nice as a ThinkPads either, placement wasn't as good.

I don't know about different caps, guessing not.

Laptop Mag does use a benchmarking program for battery, I figure why not just really use it and see how it does? I've had some pretty unreliable experiences in the past in regards to using battery benchmarks.

 

no it would not, it's in fact pretty lowend, comparable to an nVidia 7300 maybe. It's good for helping with 3D engineering graphics drawing, but not gaming.

 

good question, I thought they were announcing it today as well, I'll ask Dell what's up with that.

 

Trust me, I ran it down several times after charging up fully and never got 3+ hours. I believe these other reviews used benchmarks while I actually took it out and about and used it in coffee shops, an airport and while on the road to test for battery life. Unless Dell gave me a 4-cell but said it was 6-cell, I'm not sure if there's any other way to account for this difference.

 

i know there are lots of dell coupons for the inspiron line, but do any come for the latitude line (or do they treat the latitude line like the XPS line, and never have coupons)
cause i like the look of the new latitudes, but i'd never buy one without a big coupon.
if you're paying full price, you may as well get an IBM!!!

 

Once the models mature, Dell Small Biz usually sends out coupons that can take upto 20% off the Latitude Line.

Also, the outlet will eventually get some of these systems with nice discounts which also get coupons once in a while.

But it's true, Biz coupons are hard to find and far between.

 

So many of my thoughts have been covered, but I really think just the physical design refresh is pretty important. It looks a lot more professional now than the old Latitudes! Black and grey are bland, but isn't that what we think of as professional? I mean, I wear black and grey suits to court. If I showed up in a bright blue suit, I'd get some funny looks!

 

Very nice and detailed review. Personally I like this looks much better than Old D610 series, and ofcourse widescreen is a plus. But I wonder why would they remove S-Video out?

And about the battery life, may be this is what many people are complaining about Core-Duo( not the low-voltage core-duo)? Generally D610 used to give little more than 3 hours of battery life in typical usage( with similar capacity 6-cell). And we know it is not because of any graphics card as it is Intel IGP. (Many other Core-Duo laptops are coming with dedicated video cards making it difficult to pin point the culprit.

But here it looks like Core-Duo is the culprit and sucking more juice!!?

 

How are the mouse buttons on it? Are they loud and clicky, or silky smooth like a ThinkPad.

 

I waited a month for this? My gosh look at the cons...
-No Firewire
-****py Monospeaker
-No SD cardreader
-Poor battery life

Wow, what a bummer from Dell, I hate to say it but I think I've got to go with the Toshiba or Sony.

 

Great, informative review. I like the look of the new D-series, but not more than I did the previous Dx10's.

Hey Andrew, did you notice the PCMark04 scores are very similar? The 2.0GHz Pentium M actually beats the 1.83GHz Duo in the majority of the tests. Interesting. PCMark04 has always been questionable.

Definitely agree on the keyboard. It doesn't have that 'direct' feel of some notebooks, the keys are easy to push down. The touchpad is a big improvement too - the previous D had very small trackpads. I found it annoying that they were that small, even though I rarely use them.

No S-Video?! That's a biggie for some, it's good for presentations via projectors and such. Lack of DVI-D is no surprise, as only a handful (you can count them on your fingers) have them. Lack of an SD reader is a shame too - even Thinkpads have them nowadays. Seperate ExpressCard is disappointing too. Dell, are we going backwards?

I think it's great that they offered the 14' WXGA+ - that's the first WXGA+ screen I've seen on a notebook smaller than 17" with the exception of some Apples. That's excellent - typically, you've always been limited to 14" WXGA.

I think Dell went a little too "serious business" with this - mono-only sound? Geez, we're making the Thinkpad seem like a multimedia notebook now.

Nice to see Dell maintained the excellent D-series cooling system. I was always impressed with that, and still am.

Chaz

 

Thanks for the quick feedback - nice review btw Abaxter!

 

I was really looking forward to getting this notebook, but you can't connect to a projector? Am I hearing this right?

 

You can if you have a VGA projector.

 

Hmmmm is it only available int THE USA
Cant seem to find it on www.dell.co.nz (new zealand) site...
wonders how much it will cost.

How long will it last with a 4cell battery???

 

No firewire... for what? It's not a multimedia laptop, it's a business laptop.

No SD cardreader - I've got a 12-1 in USB reader so when I can use it with my Sony, Canon, Fuji, and Panasonic cameras. No laptop supports all of those... Duh!

Monospeaker - com'on. Laptop speakers basically suck! I bot some Altec speakers that come in a nifty little carrying case and get power from the USB port. I wouldn't use anything else with a laptop if I wanted to be able to hear it.

Battery life... Ok, that might be a real issue, but then again, that's why they make a battery that fits in the optical drive slot.

 

Hey!

Given the choice, would you guys go for one of these or a Thinkpad X60?

 

I would choose the x60 all things equal which of course they never are. I think the soon to come D420 is a closer match though.

 

This laptop has one serious omission, and it would be good if reviewers start to take note. Windows Vista has two levels of performance for the interface: Aero Basic, and Aero Glass. Basic looks something like XP, while Glass is what you will want, especially living with this laptop for the next several years.

I am not sure about the QUADRO NVM 110 that is in this laptop, but I don't think it has any directx support worth mentioning. You may even be better off with intels integrated gfx which Im pretty sure can't do Glass either.

Rumor has it you need a directx 10 compliant card. Anyone know for sure?

-d

 

I read the D620-review with red ears.
This seems to be a terrific laptop, as I normally expect from Dell. I'm a little Dell-adept, you know. (I explained this in the thread on the T43 review - just have a look, will you)
When can we expect a real comparison between the D620 and IBM/Lenovo's Z60m of t and Lenovo's flagship, the T60?

 

wat tis galss and aero?

 

Aero Glass is the new fancy GUI that Vista will have.

dugbug is mistaken though. It requires DX9 not DX10, though I'm sure DX10 cards will run it better. There are currently no DX10 cards in existence, ATI's even pushed back the release of their DX10 part, the R600, due to the Vista delay.

The NVS 110m is based off the 7300go so it's faster and has more features than the GMA950 and should be good for Aero Glass.

 

My Dell rep pulled the initial quote they sent me for the D620 and the nVidia graphics. They are only offering the Intel option at this time. I've decided to go with the D820 instead - it's bigger, but it has firewire and expresscard along with the nVidia graphics option. Plus right now the lead time looks to be better.