Looking at Dell Latitude D630

J

jimnms

Gawd
Joined
Mar 15, 2003
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882
Ok, I've been racking my brain trying to pick a new notebook. I think I have finally made my my mind. I think I'm going to go with the Dell Latitude D630. I was thinking about the XPS M1330, but it's a little more than I want to spend.

I want a light, portable notebook, and the M1330 wins in that area. The D630 is a little bigger and a little heavier, but I also want long battery life and the D630 wins that area. From some reviews I read, the D630 is also a sturdier, tougher design.

Some of the things that have me leaning toward the D630 are: the standard 3 year warranty (vs 1 year with the M1330), ability to use a media bay battery to extend battery life up to 15 hours (it will be ~8-10hrs with my configuration), it costs $600 less than the M1330 configured similarly.

I configured both notebooks as close as possible with the options I want/need. The M1330 is $2148 and the D630 is $1523. Now to make things better, Dell is offering $500 off on Latitude notebooks $1999 and up, which basically means I can add $500 worth of upgrades for free. After slapping on some extra things (3 years of accidental damage service is one) to bring the price up to get the discount, the D630 as I have it configured now is $1500 even.

There is only one problem, I can't make myself hit the buy button. I had planned to spend around $1500 for a notebook. I have $1100 that has been sitting in my paypal account from some stuff I sold a while back that I intended to use for buying a notebook. The M1330 is not out of my price range, it's just that I can't justify to myself to spend that much, but I'm still hesitant to hit the buy button on the D630 for some reason. :(
 
After reading quite a few reviews and feedback from users that have the M1330 on www.notebookreview.com I can't bring myself to buy one. The CPU whine and some build quality issues that may or may not be just with the M1330 keeps me from dropping that much cash on a laptop that isn't 110% quality.

With how much you'd be saving and the ability to add a media bay battery I would tend to recommend the D630. The M1330 is a sweet design and I am sure some users are more than happy with their purchase I cannot bring myself to make the leap.
 
I've got a Latitude D620 from work. It's quite a nice machine and performs well. I wouldn't buy one for myself because it's bulkier/heavier than I prefer for a laptop. Work provided it at no cost, so it's tough to beat that kinda perk. ;)

Asus has some 13" & 14" laptops that are worth checking out. The W7 model is really nice. My favorite thin and light lappys are from Sony.
 
Mr. Wolf said:
I've got a Latitude D620 from work. It's quite a nice machine and performs well. I wouldn't buy one for myself because it's bulkier/heavier than I prefer for a laptop. Work provided it at no cost, so it's tough to beat that kinda perk. ;)

Asus has some 13" & 14" laptops that are worth checking out. The W7 model is really nice. My favorite thin and light lappys are from Sony.
Click to expand...

Yes, I've come to realize that now. Dell states the D630 starting at 4.37lbs, but most reviews I've read show it to be just under 6 lbs. I pulled out a tape measure and compared it's dimensions to my current 14" notebook. The D630 will be about .3" wider, 1.5" shorter in depth, and a little thinner. I don't know the weight of my current notebook, just that it's heaver than I'd like. I compared it to a 5lb weight and I'm guess it's probably 6-7 lbs. The D630 is still a damn good deal for the price which is why it's hard to pass up.

I looked at the ASUS W7S notebooks. I liked what I saw except for the battery run time. It seems to only get about 2.5 hours with the 6 cell battery. I don't see a larger battery offered either.

I'm also looking at the HP tx1000z "tablet" notebook. It's not a true tablet, but it folds up like one and has a touch screen. It's a 12", light and portable with decent enough battery. Configured to my liking, it priced out to just under $1500.

I'm really having a tough time deciding. Do I go with the D630 and get the battery life I want but give up the portability, go with the HP xt1000z for portability and give up battery life or spend way too much money on the M1330 that seems to have a little of both?
 
What battery version are we talking about? The 6-cell is not that heavy. The sticky-out 9-cell makes it heavy, sure... but then no other laptop in it's class has the same runtime then.

I like the D630. I use several. I don't think it's unreasonably heavy (with the 6-cell) and the all-metal chassis/case makes it a very solid machine.
 
i too was in the 630 market. i ended up with an m1210 from the refurb store. The 630 was a little more expensive, but did come with 2 more years of mail in warranty.

the thing that did it for me....
A) i couldnt see the 630 in person, and it just looked kinda ugly online.
B) the 1210 is much smaller, and just as capable
C) the 1210 came with a 9cell
 
kgeier82 said:
i too was in the 630 market. i ended up with an m1210 from the refurb store. The 630 was a little more expensive, but did come with 2 more years of mail in warranty.

the thing that did it for me....
A) i couldnt see the 630 in person, and it just looked kinda ugly online.
B) the 1210 is much smaller, and just as capable
C) the 1210 came with a 9cell
Click to expand...

That's kind of what I'm thinking about doing too. I think a 12" notebook is going to be the right size for me. I was thinking of either getting the HP tx1000z or an M1210 from the Dell Outlet. The only killer on getting the M1210 is that I can't customize it, I'm limited to what they have available. When I checked earlier tonight, the only ones with the Nvidia card were all 1.8GHz C2D, 1GB RAM and 80GB HD. I kind of wanted to get at least 2GHz, the RAM and HD I can upgrade though. What kind of battery life are you getting with the 9-cell on your M1210. Some reviews I read said barely 3 hours with even the 9-cell. If that's the case, that will put the HP at the top of my list.
 
How about a Sony SZ? A genuine (since it registers on my sub-2kg postal scales) 1.7Kgs. If you need battery life, you can switch over to the GMA and it'll still be an untraportable with the extended battery The D630 is 2.45kg's with the 6-cell and probably about 2.8 to 2.9kg's with the 9 cell. Not incredibly heavy I think for such a solid and versatile machine.
 
i've got a d620 and one thing that i love about latitudes is their dock. this may be a complete non-issue with you, but i use my laptop as my desktop as well, and have it connected to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse (as well as other peripherals on my desk).

just recently i got a d/dock on ebay for about $40 - that's a docking station with a media bay and a full height pci slot. i'm not sure if you'd need the pci slot, but that's a wonderful bit of expandability for a laptop. the d/docks used to be hundreds new and i was shocked to find them so cheap on ebay. there's also a d/port - similar to the d/dock, except without the media bay, pci slot, or internal power supply. the d/docks seem to come out cheaper on ebay actually because with a d/port you have to buy an extra 90w power supply.

my notebook itself is sturdy and has performed very well, although if i was to buy something now, i think i'd be interested in trying a 12" tablet convertable. dell does make a 12" latitude as well so if the d620 is too big/heavy, you can have that as an alternative.
 
The docking station is a nice bonus, but really the only machine in this category which doesn't offer that function is the only one that mislabels itself a Pro - the Macbook Pro (<rant> which, collectively, are by far the best looking pieces of junk I've owned - don't talk to me about Apple and Quality Control in the same breath, because the two have no relation to each other </rant>). HP nx's offer a dock, Lenovo offers a dock, and Sony offers a dock.

The D/Dock is a useful piece of kit, but due to the huge overhang at the back it's not something that everyone likes to have on their desk. I have a couple, but I've not been in a situation yet when the D/Port doesn't do a handier job.
 
Ronco said:
How about a Sony SZ?
Click to expand...

I'm not a fan of Sony. A friend of mine used to be a big Sony nut, he had a Sony computer, Sony notebook, Sony TV, Sony surround sound system, I think every electronic device he owned was probably Sony. I don't remember what they did to piss him off, but he sold every Sony branded thing he had and vowed never to buy another product from Sony again.

I thought he just got pissed off too easy, but then my sister brought over her Sony video camera for me to make a DVD for her. When I plugged the camera in my computer, it needed the driver disk. I thought, no problem I'll just go download it from Sony. I searched and searched, but the driver was not on Sony's site. My sister went to her house, but she couldn't find the disk. I emailed Sony and they told me I had to buy a replacement disk to get the driver. :rolleyes:

Later I had the same problem when I got a freebie Sony computer from someone, but they didn't have the original restore disks. It still had the XP sticker on it, so I was able to install XP on it using an OEM disk I already owned. Sony did not have drivers on their site for some of their proprietary crap in the computer, and after emailing them I was told I would have to buy a driver disk. :mad:

So I tend to avoid Sony products now.
 
So after a complete lack of personal experience with new Sony computing products, you dismiss them out of hand?

Hmmm.

Oh yeah, I forgot sorry, it's a forum... that's normal :p
 
I just said I've had two personal experiences with Sony screwing me over, why would I trust that they've changed? Even before then, I hardly ever bought anything, if anything at all, from Sony just because of the price that comes with the name.

I checked out the Sony SZ, it's nice that you can switch between onboard and dedicated graphics. The price isn't too bad considering it has dual graphics, but the Just like Sony, the prices for extra accessories are outrageous. Whatever notebook I end up getting, I'm going to get two batteries, the standard battery for portability and the biggest battery for when I need long run time. To get both a 6-cell and 9-cell battery with the Sony SZ is an additional $300. :eek: I played with one at Circuit City the other day, but stupid Circuit City has all of their notebook's bolted down so you can't pick them up and feel them. All I can say by comparison is that it has the nicest keyboard of all the notebooks I've tried.

The HP's I'm looking at, one is $80 to upgrade to both batteries from the standard, the other is $180. The Dell D630 is $150 to get both 9 cell and 6 cell batteries, the M1330 is $110 upgrade to both batteries. What is so special about Sony's 9-cell battery that it would be a $300 upgrade?

I appreciate the suggestion, and the rant wasn't directed at you. You got to rant on the Macbook, so let me get my rant in on Sony, ok? :p
 
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