Dell Latitude D810 review

Design
The Latitude D810's design tweaks are subtle, and the system doesn't look much different from the old Latitude D800. At 42 by 361 by 260mm, the Latitude D810 is slightly wider and shallower than the D800. Dell trimmed the system's weight: the Latitude D810 weighs 3.18kg (or 3.72kg with the AC adaptor) -- a bit lighter than the typical desktop replacement, though you'll still want to think twice before slinging it over your shoulder for a long haul. The case is still constructed of stately silver magnesium alloy, appropriate for corporate environments.

Similar to the new thin-and-light Latitude D610, the Latitude D810 has a reinforced keyboard, lid, and internal frame that are noticeably firmer (read: less likely to break) than those of the previous model. Both the Latitude D610 and the D810 feature an identical pointing stick (with small, dedicated mouse buttons) that sits in the middle of the keyboard and a large, rectangular touch pad that has its own mouse buttons.

The Latitude D810's keyboard is big and has an intuitive layout; the touch pad is far enough away from the keyboard so that your right pinkie won't accidentally hit the up-arrow key while typing. The Latitude D810 has handy LEDs that light up when Wi-Fi or Bluetooth is activated. This notebook is not intended for intense multimedia use, and it doesn't offer external CD-play buttons, though there are external volume and mute buttons.

Features
Our Latitude D810 test unit was configured with some fairly high-end components. Priced at £1,835 (as of April 2005), it carried a 2GHz Pentium M Sonoma CPU; 1GB of 533MHz DDR 2 memory; a 15.4-inch display, with a very fine 1,680x1,050 native resolution; an 80GB, 5,400rpm hard drive; and an ATI Mobility Radeon X600 graphics chip with 128MB of dedicated video RAM. The included Intel Pro Wireless 802.11b/g card and the CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive aren't the absolute highest-end options, but they will serve most corporations just fine. Plus, the Latitude D810's optical storage bay is swappable, and you can always exchange the CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive for a DVD burner at a later date.

Performance
In our SysMark 2004 tests, the Latitude D810 delivered a competent performance. It scored slightly higher than the Latitude D800, showing that for office-productivity and Internet-content-creation applications, the Sonoma platform delivers more of a speed bump than a burst. On the other hand, the Latitude D810 gave an outstanding performance in our Unreal Tournament 2004 tests, which evaluate 3D application performance. It even bested entertainment-focused behemoths, such as the HP zd8000 and the Gateway M520X Plus, which contain more powerful CPUs and/or more video RAM. The Latitude D810 also excelled in our battery-drain tests, lasting a solid 299 minutes -- almost an hour longer than the Latitude D800 and quite good for a desktop-replacement system.

The Latitude does not have a FireWire or parallel port, both of which were featured on the Latitude D800. Otherwise, it has all of the essential business connections, including four USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, S-Video out, one Type II PC Card slot, and a smart-card slot. For security, Dell solders a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) chip on to every D810 motherboard; the password-protected chip serves as a hardware repository for your sensitive info.

Our test unit included Windows XP Professional and Dell's OpenManage application for helping IS reps manage all of the systems on their networks. You won't find an expensive office suite in the box, because corporations will generally load their own suites on to the laptop post-purchase. But Dell throws in a couple of useful apps: CyberLink PowerDVD and Sonic RecordNow 7.1 Deluxe for playing and burning discs respectively.

SysMark 2004 performance
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

BAPCo SysMark 2004 rating

SysMark 2004 Internet content creation

SysMark 2004 office productivity

Gateway M520

150 

181 

125 

Dell Inspiron 9200

149 

181 

123 

Dell Latitude D810

148 

179 

122 

Unreal Tournament 2004 performance
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Atari Games/Epic Games Unreal Tournament 2004

Dell Latitude D810

46.43 

Dell Inspiron 9200

44.2 

Gateway M520

32.22 

System configurations:

Dell Inspiron 9200
Windows XP Professional; 2GHz Intel Pentium M 755; 1GB DDR SDRAM 333MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 128MB; Hitachi Travelstar 7K60 60GB 7,200rpm

Dell Latitude D810
Windows XP Professional; 2GHz Intel Pentium M 755; 1GB 266MHz DDR RAM; ATI Mobility Radeon X600 128MB; Hitachi Travelstar 5K80 80GB 5,400rpm

Gateway M520
Windows XP Professional; 3.06GHz Mobile Pentium 4 532; 1GB DDR SDRAM 333MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 64MB; Hitachi Travelstar 80GN 80GB 4,200rpm

Edited by Justin Jaffe
Additional editing by Nick Hide