Dell Latitude D810 review

Average user rating

9.0

spectacular

Average user rating from 1 user

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Dell Latitude D810 user reviews

September 4, 2005

Posted by: David Myhill

"Great all-round laptop"

What I like:

Great screen, excellent performance, good battery life

What I don't like:

No Firewire port or memory card reader, expensive RAM upgrades at time of purchase

Review:

This is a great laptop for people who mainly use their computer at their desk but use it on the move from time to time. In terms of performance, I can make no real complaints with a solid 512MB of RAM and good graphics care of the 128MB ATI X600 PCI Express graphics. Battery life is good -- around 3hrs under moderate use -- the keyboard is robust, with a good action and well laid out. Since my last Dell laptop the construction has become even more robust -- pressing the lid (hard!) behind the screen does not lead to any distortion and the side mounted DVD-RW does not drop out by accident as it did with the old front-mounted design. The screen (WXGA 1680x1050 on my version) is excellent; bright with a wide viewing angle and vibrant colours. Even the speakers sound good! The only downsides are the lack of a Firewire port and memory card Reader - although these shortcomings are compensated by a generous four USB ports, gigabit Ethernet and a PCMCIA slot. Since I don't possess any devices that exclusively use Firewire, the array of USB2 ports provide an easy alternative. In comparison to competing laptops from Acer, RockDirect and HP the lack of connectivity is made up for by a faster hard drive, RAM and an excellent 3yr on-site next business day warranty as standard.<br><br>

The base model was retailing for £999 inc VAT and delivery at dell.co.uk when I made my purchase last week; I upgraded the screen, hard drive to a 7,200rpm version, Windows XP home to XP Pro and opted for a bluetooth module when purchasing. The dell.co.uk memory upgrades seemed overpriced, costing more for an upgrade to 1GB ram than 2GB of matched memory costs from dabs.com.