Just got it today, my impressions
Exterior- The exterior is beautiful. The entire casing for the palm rest and the lcd bezel is all a tough feeling plastic. The lcd lid and the base are a thickly painted metal. The laptop can be picked up by a corner, no flex or squeaks. The latch is metal, and it rattles if you jiggle it a bit, but who would do that?
Screen-WUXGA is perfect. the picture is clear, sharp and vibrant. Movies are beautiful, games are great, and it is plenty bright. Not sure what manufacturer, I don't recall the name of the program to tell what screen model you have.
Speakers- Very nice for a laptop. I think the placement up by the keyboard helped to put larger speakers in, which actually give halfway decent sound.
Keyboard- The keyboard is very nice. Not sure if it's been redesigned, but the keys are springy yet firm in other words, just right.
Touchpad- This is the best touchpad ive ever used. it's very intuitive and its more of a precise movement, rather than a shot in the dark like most touchpads. the buttons are sized well, even though I have the fingerprint reader between them, they're still plenty big.
Trackstick-The trackstick is even better than the touchpad. It's like you just think in your head where you want the pointer to go, and it does. Even better than the touchpad, which is the best ever in my opinion.
UPEK fingerprint reader-I havent gotten it configured just yet, but the software is very good, and it really is a good feature if you have sensitive info on your computer.
hard drive-THe hard drive if fast and quiet, just as fast as my desktop 7200rpm drive. the brand is toshiba.
RAM-It came with 512mb of ram, and I added a 1gb stick from newegg from a company called A-Data. Will run memtest tonight.
Core Duo-I was able to surf the internet with no slowdown while a game ran in the background. No slowdowns.
GPU-GPU is pretty good, havent taxed it out yet, but its been okay in photoshop and aoe2(very low intensity)
Wireless-Mom's d505 with a low end dell card all but loses wireless signal in my bedroom. The Intel 3945 gets 54mbbs and excellent signal strength. Nuff said.
Bluetooth- connects to my phone easily. Very convenient, plus the blue light on the led light panel looks good
Battery-Only complaint. I demand full screen brightness all the time, so my battery only lasts 2 and a half to 3 hours. The 9cell would probably not help much. I might buy the media bay battery for a spare, but 2 and a half hours is a respectable time
gotta give 9.8/10 tmans the only bad things are a battery that should get 30 more minutes, lack of 5 in one media reader, and no media direct and front mounted audio buttons. These were comprimises i made when choosing the latitude, but had they been included, the laptop would be PERFECT. I'll settle for nearly almost but not quite yet still incredibly close to perfect
Exterior- The exterior is beautiful. The entire casing for the palm rest and the lcd bezel is all a tough feeling plastic. The lcd lid and the base are a thickly painted metal. The laptop can be picked up by a corner, no flex or squeaks. The latch is metal, and it rattles if you jiggle it a bit, but who would do that?
Screen-WUXGA is perfect. the picture is clear, sharp and vibrant. Movies are beautiful, games are great, and it is plenty bright. Not sure what manufacturer, I don't recall the name of the program to tell what screen model you have.
Speakers- Very nice for a laptop. I think the placement up by the keyboard helped to put larger speakers in, which actually give halfway decent sound.
Keyboard- The keyboard is very nice. Not sure if it's been redesigned, but the keys are springy yet firm in other words, just right.
Touchpad- This is the best touchpad ive ever used. it's very intuitive and its more of a precise movement, rather than a shot in the dark like most touchpads. the buttons are sized well, even though I have the fingerprint reader between them, they're still plenty big.
Trackstick-The trackstick is even better than the touchpad. It's like you just think in your head where you want the pointer to go, and it does. Even better than the touchpad, which is the best ever in my opinion.
UPEK fingerprint reader-I havent gotten it configured just yet, but the software is very good, and it really is a good feature if you have sensitive info on your computer.
hard drive-THe hard drive if fast and quiet, just as fast as my desktop 7200rpm drive. the brand is toshiba.
RAM-It came with 512mb of ram, and I added a 1gb stick from newegg from a company called A-Data. Will run memtest tonight.
Core Duo-I was able to surf the internet with no slowdown while a game ran in the background. No slowdowns.
GPU-GPU is pretty good, havent taxed it out yet, but its been okay in photoshop and aoe2(very low intensity)
Wireless-Mom's d505 with a low end dell card all but loses wireless signal in my bedroom. The Intel 3945 gets 54mbbs and excellent signal strength. Nuff said.
Bluetooth- connects to my phone easily. Very convenient, plus the blue light on the led light panel looks good
Battery-Only complaint. I demand full screen brightness all the time, so my battery only lasts 2 and a half to 3 hours. The 9cell would probably not help much. I might buy the media bay battery for a spare, but 2 and a half hours is a respectable time
gotta give 9.8/10 tmans the only bad things are a battery that should get 30 more minutes, lack of 5 in one media reader, and no media direct and front mounted audio buttons. These were comprimises i made when choosing the latitude, but had they been included, the laptop would be PERFECT. I'll settle for nearly almost but not quite yet still incredibly close to perfect
Great review.. thanks for being the first!
RE the battery, PCMag had a review that put it at 4 or 5 hours I believe, near the IBM T60 with a 9 cell.. I wonder what's different.. they were using an NVS 120M, I know that much..
-P
Edit: Mine just shipped!!
my D810 needs a new friend
1. No bloatware installed to slow it down.
2. Startup times and shutdown times are very good. I'm comparing to a similarly configured T43p and T60, which startup and shutdown incredibly slow. Call me impatient.
3. Wireless is just excellent. Finds hotspots and connects very quickly.
4. Love the keyboard which is very quiet and the trackpoint which is excellent.
One issue I have is that in my task tray I have two rows of icons - one on top of each other and they are incredibly tiny. Anyone know if there is a way to configure these?
I'm really into getting one(for video/graphics work) so:
I would trully appreciate close up pictures of keyboard, screen etc.
I'm interested in the screen quality: How are the colours? The blacks- is it milky- in a dark room with black screen can you post a pic?
Ghosting in movies?
Also I've read reviews that the speakers are not as good as Toshiba Qosmio. Is the sound cheap?
TIA
ps
cool posts guys
l8rz
1) Is it worth going for the 7200 RPM hard drive over the 5400 RPM becuase the review says that the 5200 is as good as a 7200 but I'm still not convinced.
2) Is there much of a difference in performance between the 110m and 120m graphics card?
Thanks a lot
Also, if your WUXGA screen has no issues, do you know if the WXGA and WSXGA+ screen are also without issues?
Thanks!
Also, if your WUXGA screen has no issues, do you know if the WXGA and WSXGA+ screen are also without issues?
Thanks!
1) Latitude 820 with WUXGA, does it come with TrueLife screen like how we have true life with WSXGA+ in E1505?
2)For latitude 820 with DVD -RW dvd burner, is it the same like 8X CD/DVD Burner
(DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability in E1505
3) difference between 6 cell vs 9 cell? I dont want system to be heavy, which one is better option?
4) heard a lot about screen problems both WUXGA & WSXGA+ .. what u have to say??
5) I like big resolution, I saw one at dell kiosk it was 15.4 wsxga+ with true life... liked it very much .. dont know it was glossy/reflective. But I hate the ones in which you see dark screen when you move from one position to another. Like my inspiron 5100 notebook, when i sit i can see it clear but i lie down on bed and try to watch , the screen bcomes dark and i have to go get up and adjust the screen so i can watch laying down. Which type of screen is this one...??? I need something which I can watch even if i move and dont have to adjust the screen everytime.
6)hours of battery life ?
Basic one is fine as long as it doesnt add extra weight to the notebook. 6lbs is fine for notebook i think. Currently have 8lbs of inspiron 5100 which i hate and also bcause of its resolution of only 1024 * 800
7)if not comfortable with 1900 resolution i can switch to 1600 but in inspiron i will be stuck with 1600 max...
also appearance wise , is there any diff between wuxga vs wsxga+ true life? because is saw true life one at dell kiosk and loved it
is it ok to pay 335 more for quality of latitude plus 3 yrs warranty or shall i stick to basic inspiron and save money???
plz advise.... by the way anyone knows if WUXGA comes with true life or not???? i love true life screeens....
Suggestions needed !!!!!
Like Ajashadi, I am looking at E1505 and D820 and have many of the same questions posted by Ajashadi and jgayman.
regarding dual-layer drive... i have to disagree with you, because dell has dvd+/-rw dl drives.... i've got my d820 last week and it came with an Toshiba Samsung (TSST) dual layer +/- dvd drive. I have to say that i was quite impressed by the performace of this drive... it reads very accurate and fast.. and it also very quiet...
regarding the first post of this thread with the review... i have to dissagree regarding the Alps touchpad. I've had lots of notebooks with many brands of touchpads.... Alps is one of the good ones.. but no way the best... IMHO Synaptics touchpads are the best ones... What i don't like at Alps is that the surface of the touchpad is not very smooth and sometimes your finger does not glide as it should. but overall the alps touchpad is OK.
overall the d820 notebook is a wonderfull machine...
beware of the upek fingerprint reader... it has internal memory.. and if you enroll your fingerprint on some OS and then reinstall your OS you'll be surprised by the fact that the reader already knows your fingerprint and doesn't let you enroll it again.. So you'll have to follow a special procedure for removing fingerprints from the upek memory. this procedure is described on the dell support web-site...
good luck...
I'm reading lots of reports from d620 and some from d820 owners who are VERY unhappy with the screen quality (reports of light leakage, not bright enough, graininess, etc.).
There is a LONG thread about this at dell community forum: http://delltalk.us.dell.com/supportf...ssage.id=21944
I read above the MrEvil is very pleased with his D820 screen, which is encouraging. Adrian, others???
thanks
thanks
They have variances in GPU i.d. clock speeds and memory type/amount but all have 4 pixel,3 vertex,64bit membus.
Fastest configuration is the XPS1210 7400go with 64mb of GDDR3 memory,all the others have more [whats the point?] onboard memory but is DDR2 type meaning limited memory clockspeeds.
Your 6800go is twice as powerful @12 pixel,8 vertex,256bit membus,
73/7400 is bottom end of 7 series,6800 was second to top of 6 series after 6800ultra.
You won't be able to have anywhere the resolution or quality of your 6800go gaming wise,but you will have twice the battery life...if thats a factor.
I game on mine all the time,there's 4 games I have found barely playable [oblivion,GRAW,double agent and the worst,R6vegas]but the rest of the newer games play pretty well at lowered resolution and good quality,even STALKER after the patch and finally finding a driver to fix the trippy sky artifacting [97.73] and of course static lighting instead of dynamic [or dx8]
Still looks good though.
The specs are in a pdf found on the left side of the page under product overview. Perhaps this is the source of your problem. I ordered one earlier today before seeing this posting.
dell has crap graphics cards for 15.4 inch notebooks, (not to mention their 14 notebooks, their XPS 14 uses built in Intel graphics!!) im going Asus they have a 7700 in a 14inch! expensive... but worth it. anyways if a mod would be possible that would definetly grab my attention.