Dell Latitude D630 Review

Dell Latitude D630 is following it`s successful predecessor D620, but it hasn’t changed much, they are both encased in a sturdy magnesium alloy. It is a notebook suitable for travelers due to its weight of only 2.4 kg including its standard battery. Together with the power adapter it weights 2.85 kg, a little lighter than Dell latitude D620. Little design changes have been done to the new Latitude D630 , the innards have been turbo charged with Intel’s latest Santa Rosa platform, witch is 15 20 percent faster than the old Centrino chipsets and in the same time consumes less battery life. It’s Dell’s first notebook based on Intel’s new platform. It has an Intel Core duo processor T7300 with 4MB L2 cash and an 800 MHz FSB. Inside there’s a 2 GB 667Mhz DDR2 Ram.

The hard disk is a Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 Serial ATA hard disk, one of the fastest on the market today, with a speed of 7,200 rpm.

The Latitude D630 notched up a score of 4,236 in PCmark05, with 5,234 in the CPU, 4,381 in the memory section and 3,888 in the hard disk section. All in all, an average array of scores for the price and we were hoping for more in the hard disk section.

The graphic card Dell has included is an x3100 from Intel that scored only 11 frames per second in Fear. With a good resolution of 1,440×900, the 14.1 widescreen display is quite pleasing. This notebook is not for gamers, but still older games should not have any problem running.

The D630 is bursting with other features. Like the Gateway E-265M, it has four USB ports and a FireWire port. The DVD burner might not seem like much, but its modular, which means you can swap it out with other optical-drive solutions. For security, the laptop integrates a Trusted Platform Module, SmartCard Reader, fingerprint reader, and theft recovery services via Computrace. An EV-DO modem is located in the base of the system and the antennas are embedded in the notebook screen, giving you access to Verizon’s EV-DO Rev A networks. Theoretically, you can achieve up to 3.1 Mbps throughput speeds if you pick up a strong cell-phone signal. Being essentially a Dell Latitude the ATG is well connected. On the wired side is a RJ45 LAN jack for the ATG’s Gigabit network interface. Modems are still occasionally used, and so there is an RJ11 jack for the 56k v924 modem. The brightness has been increased from 185 nits , value of D620 to 220 nits, witch is actually quite a big change.

The design is subdued, the grey exterior and black interior will fit into even the most buttoned-up corporate environments. More important, the laptop’s magnesium alloy case brings an extra sturdiness that you don’t see on consumer laptops, and its display hinges are reinforced for the long haul.

The screen’s matte finish makes it good for typical office productivity work, though, and its wide aspect ratio lets you comfortably work with two to three windows open side by side.
Most impressive aspect of this machine is its build quality witch is exlecelent. The use of magnesium alloy helps to make the chassis robust, and it provides plenty of protection for its components. The casing on the rear of the display is satisfyingly strong, and a curved edge to the bezel prevents items from falling between the display and keyboard when closed.

The networking is quite disappointing, dell included just a 802.11g PCI Express mini card. Since D630`s card slots are hidden well beneath the keyboard you won’t be able to upgrade to the new Draft-N standard if you decide to buy the new Dell Latitute D630 now.
It’s true the keyboard is not that big but it is very well made, with a silent touch and with a good amount of travel and some of the peripheral keys are slightly cramped. Navigation is done either by a quite big touch pad or a responsive pointing stick in the middle of the keyboard.

This is Dell’s first notebooks to support 3.6Mbits per second HSDPA mobile broadband. You get access by inserting a SIM card behind the battery. It’s an exclusive tie up with Vodafone, who demands a monthly subscription for the service. However, the unit isn’t locked to Vodafone so you could insert any old sim card but Dell won’t offer support if you do this.

Under the left palm are situated the 2W speakers, witch have quite a good quality. Very accessible are the quick mute and volume buttons witch are situated just on top of the keyboard.
There are two batteries included in the package, one of them is a standard six-cell battery an extended nine-cell battery that juts out from the front of the chassis. Tests have proven that the values for the life of the batteries are not bad at all, the Dell has achieved two hours and 30 minutes for the 9 cell battery and one hour and forty minutes with its standard battery.

Overall the notebook is excellent for everyday use, with a weight of only 2,4 kg and the help of the thin chassis it slips easily into any bag. The new upgrades since the D620 are welcome and they come together to make the new D630 one of the top notebooks for travelers. Its price is pretty competitive having in mind all the new upgrades and its performance. The new Dell is a business class notebook due to it`s functions. Not very pleasing is the fact that the upgrades are quite expensive. The D630 comes with a standard warranty of three years for parts and labor, including next-business-day on-site service witch is quite good comparing to other competitors. While the Dell Latitude starts at a very reasonable US$2,198, suitably equipped version costs more. So with a 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7300, 2GB of RAM, the shock-mounted 80GB drive, and a CDRW/DVD optical drive, the price is US$2,871, still quite reasonable.