Dell Latitude D820

Corporate buyers looking for a high-end machine for the executive ranks will appreciate the Dell Latitude D820. It offers all the bells and whistles that a business user could need, including a fast Core 2 Duo T7400 processor and embedded wireless broadband connectivity.
 
The silver-gray chassis with black accents is conservatively styled, given the trend in laptop design these days, but is appropriate for the boardroom. At 6.6 pounds and more than 14 inches wide, the D820 isn't for the road warrior who needs to drag a machine through airports. Rather, it's a good fit for the desk jockey who needs to tote the machine down the hall for an occasional meeting.
 
The 15.4-inch widescreen LCD means you won't miss a desktop monitor, and some users will appreciate the high 1920 x 1200-pixel resolution, since it lets you have multiple windows open at once. Of course, default icons and fonts wind up rather small, so some users will want to opt for the lower-resolution panel (Dell also offers 1280 x 800-pixel and 1680 x 1050-pixel choices on the D820). The full-sized keyboard is comfortable (though key taps were a bit loud), and the D820 includes both a touchpad and a pointing stick.

 

Like all Dell Latitude notebooks, the D820 features a durable design, including a magnesium alloy casing, steel hinges, and StrikeZone protection for the hard drive. ExpressCharge technology enables you to recharge the battery to 80 percent capacity in about an hour. Dell backs this business system with a three-year warranty.
 
Security-conscious business users will appreciate the integrated fingerprint reader, and we love the Dell Wireless Broadband option, which lets you connect at near-DSL speeds wherever there's a Verizon Wireless EV-DO signal. In our Manhattan offices, surfing the Web didn't feel quite as fast as Wi-Fi, but it was nonetheless more than adequate.
 
The Core 2 Duo processor showed its stripes on our MobileMark 2005 test with the highest score to date of 308. Battery life was also impressive for this class of machine at 4 hours and 10 minutes, about 40 minutes above average for mainstream systems. The 512MB Nvidia Quadro NVS 120M TurboCache graphics pushed the D820 to a score of 3,927 on 3DMark03, making this rig appropriate for occasional gaming (when work is done, of course).
 
Sure, the D820 isn't cheap when fully loaded, but given its performance and features, power users will be more than satisfied with this system.


Read our Intel Core 2 Duo Test Drive article for more on Intel's latest mobile chip.

 

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