Dell Latitude X1 First Thoughts Review (pics)

by Brian Beeler, Ohio USA

Dell Latitude X1 (on the left) alongside competing ultraportable Fujitsu P7000 Series (view larger image)

The Dell Latitude X1 is squarely targeted at business users who need to carry a notebook that is highly mobile and has the durability to withstand the daily grind. The X1 is loaded with features for a machine of such small size and a weight of only 2.5 pounds. The highlights include a 12.1" widescreen, WiFi (802.11b/g), Bluetooth, ExpressCharge, sealed keyboard, Secure Digital slot, CompactFlash slot and FireWire. The Latitude X1 is fully customizable as well, with prices starting around $1600.

I love ultraportable notebooks and a few months ago when I found out Dell was going to launch a derivative of the Samsung Q30 in the US, I got excited. The Q30 is a very popular machine in many parts of the world, it's a shame it never made it here, until now. Dell has adapted the Q30 for their needs, making a few changes, most for the better, such as built-in Bluetooth.

The most striking thing about the X1 is its size and weight. With the standard battery, the unit is just 2.5 pounds and less than an inch thick. It's remarkably small and the weight makes it one of the lightest notebooks on the market, certainly tops for laptops with a 12.1" display. However, there are some sacrifices made to achieve this weight; there is no optical drive and the battery is only a 3 cell type. There is a 6-cell battery option that will get you up to 6 hours of charge, but it also tacks on a little more weight. The space and weight savings also extend to the AC adaptor, which is the smallest I've ever seen for a notebook. On the charging front, Dell has included a technology called ExpressCharge. ExpressCharge will yield an 80% battery charge in an hour. This is huge, especially for those who travel a good deal. I know I've often been in a rush to the airport after a day of meetings, only to find a near dead battery before boarding. With ExpressCharge owners will be able to get enough battery life to likely make it through the flight so they can remain productive. One more note on the batteries, they offer a button that can be pressed to give a quick battery level reading without having to boot the notebook. This is a great way to tell how badly you need to charge without having to power up the notebook (thereby draining more power!).

The X1 is driven by Intel's ultra low voltage (ULV) Pentium M processor. Dell opted to use the 1.1 GHz model though, when 1.2 GHz is the most current chip and is what Fujitsu and other ultra portable manufacturers are migrating to. Intel has had yield problems with their ULV chips in the past, so it may be a supply issue. But to many every bit of performance gain in notebooks like this is important, so hopefully Dell will offer a 1.2 GHz option soon.

The machine is by no means underpowered for what its buyers will use it for. As an owner of ultra portables for nearly three years, aside from gaming, I haven't found an office/productivity task these machines can't handle. The same is true with the X1. The X1 comes with a base of 256MB RAM, with one open memory slot that can accommodate a 1GB chip. Our test unit has 512MB, which is acceptable for Windows XP operation and should be the baseline for any notebook, especially for this category.

Any time you go to such a small body for a notebook, sacrifices have to be made. Dell didn't make many with the X1, but the hard drive is one of them. Instead of the standard 2.5" notebook drive, they had to use a smaller 1.8" model available in 30GB and 60GB sizes. The drive size isn't really much of an issue; most mobile professionals really don't need more than 60GB of space. The hard drive rotation speed is the larger concern, these drives are only rated at 4200 RPM and there's nothing the user can do about it since these size drives don't come in faster speeds. I don't think this will end up bothering many people, but if you're trying to find a high performance small notebook, this probably isn't the best fit. One nice thing regarding the hard drive is it is mounted with a shock absorber to help protect the drive from the jostling associated with traveling.

An area where Dell has been knocked quite a bit of late, especially with the Inspiron series notebooks, is keyboard quality. I've been impressed with the X1's keyboard so far, it's firm and responsive. The keys are all sized well and in the locations you would expect. Dell has included dedicated page up and page down, insert, delete, home and end buttons. The keyboard is also sealed to protect the X1 from spills. I think we all know someone who's put a coffee in their notebook, so this feature should provide a nice insurance policy against those mistakes.

Latitude X1 front (view larger image)

Latitude X1left side (view larger image)

Latitude X1 right side (view larger image)

Latitude X1 back (view larger image)

Keyboard and Touchpad (view larger image)

Click here to view more pictures of the Latitude X1

Below the keyboard is the X1's touch pad. It's quite small in both surface area and click buttons. The touchpad is 1.5" x 2" in comparison to the Fujitsu P7000 which is 2 3/8" x 1 3/4". The mouse buttons are in inch wide, but just over 1/4" tall, making them a little tough to get used to. It is well positioned though, both right handed people and lefties should find the central placement easy to reach.

Already noted, the X1 comes with WiFi (802.11 b/g) and Bluetooth. The latter is a mild coup, since most notebooks of this size don't include that feature. The issue is one of size for all the antennas. In using the X1 I had good wireless reception with a Netgear router. I also easily paired Bluetooth devices using the wizard on the X1. As a mobile person, I appreciate the Bluetooth integration so I can use my phone as a modem to get online in places that don't have WiFi or other connections. The Bluetooth is actually even more critical since the machine does not have a PCMCIA slot, which is often used for AirCards to get online.

While the X1 doesn't offer a PCMCIA card slot, it does have other expansion slots worth noting. They've included both a Secure Digital and CompactFlash slots. Both are ideal for pulling off photos from a digital camera and accessing data from other peripherals like PDAs and MP3 players. The CF slot is especially uncommon for notebooks of this size, and both slots add a great deal of flexibility to this notebook.

Since it's a business oriented machine, the Latitude X1 ships with Windows XP Pro. All of the other software is business oriented and associated to a device on the machine. That is, there isn't a bunch of junk software included. Dell has also bundled a few useful utilities in what they call QuickSet. QuickSet includes power management tools, presentation mode, display meters for volume and brightness and seamless display switching. It's a nice set of functions, especially the presentation mode which automatically detects the best resolution for the projector it's connected to and adjusts power settings so you're not interrupted with things like the display going to sleep.

After only a week with the Latitude X1, I'm impressed. For mobile professionals who want a serious work machine, the X1 is right on target. The unit we have is not a production unit, so we can't post benchmarks at the moment, but we'll be back in a few weeks with our full review. In the interim please post any questions you have and I'll be happy to answer them.

Full Image Gallery and Specs

Follow this link to see specs and image gallery for the Dell Latitude X1

Other Reviews by this Author

• Panasonic e-Lite W2
• Sony PSP Review
• Fujitsu LifeBook P7010 Review
• Targus Bluetooth Mini Mouse Review
• Sumdex Impact Guard Sleeve Review

 

I have this notebook as well. I have had it for about 2 weeks or so now, and i love it. Its light, and performs much better then i anticipated for a 1.1ghz ULV. I bought it for 1550$ with 512 ram. Great deal


And yes the screen is not the glare type like sony's T-series or Fujitsu's P7k

 

Nice review.....I was waiting for this a long time ago...
I believe that the screen is not a glare type...right?

 

Can you run a Super Pi test to the 2 million? Thanks.

-Arash

 

how is the case quality? do you get the feeling this case will withstand being thrown in and out of bookbag over a few years time?

 

can you also comment on the screen. is it as bright as a typical inspiron? crisp? any backlight bleeding? sparking effect? thanks.

 

I can't run any benchmarks, this isn't a produciton model. As for the display, it's even with no sparkle to speak of. For a matte display I'd call it average, maybe slightly above.

Brian

www.BargainPDA.com | www.DigitalCameraReview.com | www.NotebookReview.com | www.SpotStop.com | www.TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

Can you or Aspects comment on the battery life?

[ our words to still their voice | our hands to break their worthles necks ]

 

Nice review, thanks so far.
I have some comments and questions:

+ it should be noted, that the X1 has Bluetooth 2.0 support, with EDR. The communication devices are mostly 1.1/1.2 at the moment, but this is the future
+ the Ethernet interface supports 10/100 and also 1000MBit, this is a plus and not offered by too many notebooks
+ the TOSHIBA HD (at least the 60GB model) is one of the fastest 1,8" available. According to http://freshrpms.net/docs/x1/ it can handle 21MB/s, which I think is not bad for such small device.
+ and one most important thing: the X1 has no fan.
How hot will this small thing get under load? I hope the "Thermal-Cooling Assembly" on top and below the CPU (see Dell service manual) is good enough to prevent a throttle down under high load conditions. Some tests would be nice ...
May be that's also the reason why Dell stay at 1.1GHz. I've heard some rumors, that the 1.2GHz ULV runs hotter.

 

Thanks bug for that post. Due to the hardware I was running I can't comment on battery. Regarding the processor, the 1.2 will be available, I just don't know when.

Brian

www.BargainPDA.com | www.DigitalCameraReview.com | www.NotebookReview.com | www.SpotStop.com | www.TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

Do you (or does anyone) know how the keyboard on this laptop compares to the Dell 700m? This one looks a lot more logical in its layout, unlike the 700m, that shrunk its period, comma, and question mark keys. However, there seems to be a potential for less key travel and worse feel because of how thin this laptop is.

I can't wait for the final review. This first look really enticed me.

 

They keyboard was surprisingly good. You can tell from the images though that a few keys are jammed in the upper right that you might be more used to along the right side or bottom right. I think this is actualy one of the best units Dell has ever made, maybe because it's a Samsung. [ ]

Brian

www.BargainPDA.com | www.DigitalCameraReview.com | www.NotebookReview.com | www.SpotStop.com | www.TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

I'm guessing you haven't used the 700m's keyboard then?

I really love the layout of this keyboard. I never use the Page Up, Down, Home, End, etc. keys, but I always use everything on the main section of the keyboard. Looks like Samsung designed it for users like me.

When can we expect the final review?

 

I haven't used it for more than a few minutes at a time, no.

As for the full review, we're hoping to get our final release X1 next week, we'll keep you posted.

Brian

www.BargainPDA.com | www.DigitalCameraReview.com | www.NotebookReview.com | www.SpotStop.com | www.TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

Hi Brian,
You mentioned that the AC adapter of X1 is the smallest you've ever seen in laptops, could you take pictures of the two adapters of X1 and P7000 side by side?

Also, the 3-line cord of X1 is very bulky compared with the 2-line cords of the Fujitsu's and the IBM's, any pictures of them side by side will be appreciated. Thanks

 

I sent it back already, but the brick is probably 30% smaller than the Fujitsu P7000.

Brian

www.BargainPDA.com | www.DigitalCameraReview.com | www.NotebookReview.com | www.SpotStop.com | www.TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

How strong is whatever mechanism holds the screen shut?

[ our words to still their voice | our hands to break their worthles necks ]

 

Thanks for the great Review!
I also have some questions for you Brian:

+ What about the quality of VGA-out? Is it possible to use it sensible at 1280*1024 or higer resultion?

+ Of course the real battery life like others asked too

+ What about the performance? Any Problems with waiting for applications to be loaded? How long does it take to boot up windows? Some benchmarks like prime or 3dmark01 might be useful.

+ Noiselevel: Of course there's no fan, but what about the HDD? Are there any background noise, unexpected or disrupting sounds?

+ Line out: There's only stereo, no optical connector, right? What about the quality and volume?

+ The wight: how much does it weigh? Real-life wight of optical device, x1, the "brick", etc.

Okay that's it so far. Thanks for your informations! I'm looking forward for the review!
Greetings from Germany

 

Andrew (abaxter) is taking on the X1 for the full review. See his just=posted article on the X41 vs the X1, I think some of your questions will be answered there.

Brian

www.BargainPDA.com | www.DigitalCameraReview.com | www.NotebookReview.com | www.SpotStop.com | www.TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

Brian, thx for the interesstion comparison (x1 vs. P)

could you show us a footprint comparison ?
e.g. P on the X1,

or frontview. side by side Pvs X1

thx in advance ![ ]

 

I had to send the X1 back, sorry.

Brian

www.BargainPDA.com | www.DigitalCameraReview.com | www.NotebookReview.com | www.SpotStop.com | www.TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

I have an X1. The power brick is basically the size of a stick of butter... dramatically smaller than most Dell bricks. Unlike previous Dell ultraportables, I don't think you can use other Latitude bricks with it (different connector).

There is NO mechanism to hold the screen shut... it doesn't latch at all.

So far, I like the laptop... although I can't imagine what would make them think they should include both a SD and CF slot.. and omit a PC Card slot. Pretty poor decision in my book... what about the growing popularity of cell cards?

 

Very good point, the air card market is growing very rapidly, moreso than the need for a CF slot if you ask me. Most digital cameras are going to smaller media form factors anyway.

Brian

www.BargainPDA.com | www.DigitalCameraReview.com | www.NotebookReview.com | www.SpotStop.com | www.TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by MarvinK
So far, I like the laptop... although I can't imagine what would make them think they should include both a SD and CF slot.. and omit a PC Card slot. Pretty poor decision in my book... what about the growing popularity of cell cards?
<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>
The CF slot and a PCcard slot are eletrical the same, the CF is just smaller if connected via a card bridge. So the X1 has such PCcard slot in a smaller format. It's not a USB connected card reader for memory cards like often seen in other notebooks.
The communication cards are often also available in CF slot format, mainly for the PocketPC market, so you can use them in a X1 also. For the PocketPCs there are also adapters to connect a PCcard to a PocketPCs CF slot.

 

I've used it with the Sprint CF card, and it does work... but like almost every other CF-format card I've seen, its the black sheep of the family. No updates, nobody in support is familiar with it, etc. While it may be technically possible to use CF cards, its not very practical--most cell providers dont even sell a CF-based card... and that's not a trend that is going to change because Dell/Samsung made a poor design decision.

In any case, I think the whole idea was pretty silly... a PC Card slot wouldve made more sense than the CF/SD slots. Otherwise, I do like the laptop.

 

Does the heat bother anyone? Sounds like the laptop's internal components are ok with it, but as a human, the heat seems to get close to my threshold of comfort, and I don't know if some of my "cheap" table furniture laminates can withstand it...I know, prop it up with something. But if I am using my lap as a table (hence laptop), the heat can be very uncomfortable, especially on a hot short pants day!

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by chaos

 

Please take new questions to the full review, we're getting too much overlap.

http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17446

Brian

www.BargainPDA.com | www.DigitalCameraReview.com | www.NotebookReview.com | www.SpotStop.com | www.TabletPCReviewSpot.com