Dell D820 Laptop Review

Ok I got one of these about a week ago (July 06) and wanted to toss in my thoughts on it. First off the specs.

**ADDED** Much to my surprise the D820 does indeed have a built in microphone which works fairly well all things considered. It certainly isn't going to be confused for a studio quality mic but it picks up minimal internal vibrations (overall noise is very low from this machine) and serves for speakerphone calls via skype in a pinch though I much preffer using a bluetooth headset (You did get the built in buetooth option didn't you?).

D820
Core Duo 2ghz
2gb 667 RAM
100 GB 5400 RPM hd
120m Nvidia card with 256 on board 256 shared memory.
DVD burner (single layer only)
9 cell primary
Extra 9 cell Battery
WUXGA 15.4" display
Internal BlueTooth
Dell Wireless G card (also supports B)


Why I chose it:

Well first off I was very leary of Dell. I was all set to get one of the ACER core duo machines but the 8204 kept getting Jekyle and Hyde reviews and it seemed related to various batches pointing to production quality control issues. I have to admit if the AMD turion X2 ferrari had been available I would still have been tempted. But several niggles finally pushed me away from the ACER machines. I first noticed the Dell because of the odd combination of a WUXGA screen (1920x1200) on a 15.4 borderline thin and light machine. When I checked up on its reviews everyone praised the build quality and it drew an awful lot of comparison to the thinkpad line which is a very good thing. Ultimately Dells configurability allowed me to get very close to the exact machine I wanted. Compared to the ACER I gave up on the video card capability (ATI 1600 vrs Nvidia Quadro) but gained more consistent quality of build and actually better support.

The Caveats. I had an employee purchase plan so the above configuration cost me almost the exact same as most folks are charging for an 8204 Acer. Two the Latitude business line support is the last of the US based Dell support and is fairly well regarded. Included in my price thanks to my discount I got a 3 year on site service agreement compared to the one year parts deal with Acer unless I forked out a fair amount more.

The other contenders:

Gateway machines just plain didn't do it for me. Screen options were not very good nor were the video cards. Finally I didn't get the discount I did with Dell and specing the system to match priced it above my limit. Though I did give the Core Duo tablet a nice hard long look. If they had a higher resolution screen as an option I may well have gone for it.

IBM. The Thinkpad 61 15.4 wide screen core duo machine was also in the running. But Lenovo has maintained the high premium for lower speced (but highly reliable) gear. between price and not being able to spec it out the way I wanted ultimately kiboshed this idea.

Alienware I really wanted to consider but they have yet to break out and dual core machines.


The Good:

This thing is built like a tank. Style is highly subdued and it screams corporate box. But that isn't all bad. Its solid and while its not flashy the thing simply oozes quality on the build. You can find some niggles with it and many have. But frankly this laptop is in the top tier of build quality in available laptops on the market right now. It isn't quite as solid as the Thinkpad line. But frankly the differences are simply not that big a deal.

The WUXGA screen is both its greatest strength and biggest weakness. Dealing with good here. So while its not glossy it is quality. The high resolution means wide open spaces for lots and lots of document display space. Don't judge it out of the box. You need to get the latest drivers from video2go and do the modded inf file deal to get the latest NVIDIA detonator drivers going. Then spend a lot of time tweaking the settings and you will be rewarded with a very very nice picture. Its not sony. But for a machine for doing serious work it is outstanding. Very low glare.

Battery life with the 9 cell is excellent. A solid 4 hours and Change under typical use. full dim on the monitor and web browsing would likely net you 5 and change. Cranking out some serious cpu and video cycles will eat it up in 3 hours and change. Very Very respectable. It also allows for a modular battery in the CDROM slot if you really want to roam free. Also it isn't clearly stated on the website but the 6 cell and 9 cell primary batteries fit in the same space so no need to worry about annoying battery overhangs on this machine. The 9 cell pushes the weight up close to 7 pounds (6.5 advertised) But really the difference from the 6 cell is negligible and the 30% boost in unplugged capacity without any overhand makes it silly not to get the 9 cell if you are planing on any unplugged useage. With a spare I have 8-10 horus of unplugged capacity.

Weight is a glass half empty glass half full argument. If you are judging it in light of true mobile machines then its a tad bulky and its weight clearly falls to the wrong side of the divide for portable. However if you are looking in terms of mobile horsepower then this machine is very portable in terms of how much it hides under the hood. Also the added size along with magnesium frame means it is excellent at dissipating heat from all this firepower. Something the smaller systems with similar spec capacity are notrious for not being able to do. If you need real desktop muscle (and screen realestate) on the go then this machine deserves a very close look. If you need something that is comfortable to lug around I would suggest looking elsewhere.

Connectivity. Oh man this thing connects any which way possible right now. Modem, Gig-E Nic, Wireless, Bluetooth and even mobile broadband built in for either Verizon or Cingular. This thing is in the top tier of connectivity.

Along with the communication capacity it also packs a lot of hardware connectivity options as it sports a 54mm express slot which will largley useless now will be a key need in the years to come and it has a PCMCIA type II slot. Additionally it holds a smart card reader as well. Since it is available with the fingerprint reader this thing is conencted and it has security covered. 4 USB ports and a USB power port, a modular bay, serial port, vga d-sub connector, IRDA and 4 wire firewire round out your expansion/connectivity capacity. Needless to say the machine will be solid and capable of a fair amount of adaptation in the years to come.

The Keyboard Rocks. Solid. No Flex.. NONE (within reason now). I defy someone to type with regular to even strong key tapping force to find any noticeable give in this thing. The amount of travel and tactile feedback from the keys is top notch. Its on Par with the think pad keyboards and macpro. I would still give an edge to both of those systems. But again the difference is very subtle. They are all in a similar class and it is very good company for a keyboard to be in.

Wi Fi detector without booting up. Potentially handy. Though given I have a wifi capable phone I have a far more capable system detector in it than the blinking light used here. However its a very nice thought and it does work as advertised.

Future Proofing. With the expection of the inability to upgrade the Video card the system should have some serious longevity which is currently a very rare thing. RAM can be expanded to 4 gb eventually and the first Gen of Merom 64 bit Core 2 Duo chips share the same socket. As the CPU on this mainboard is not soldered down that means that when the time comes this system can move to 64bit architecture. The Standalone card is more than up to the first gen requirements of Vista Aero. Thus this system has the potential to be a high end system now that actually manages to maintain midrange status.. and possibly even cling to the higher end of the performance spectrum as Vista ships and the move the 64bit begins in earnest. In this day and age a Laptop that has the potential to expand intot he next generation gracefully is a very rare thing indeed. Chalk this up to the inherent design of a Top level business system. Dell doesn't want to be constantly changing this system so it HAD to have these kinds of legs and this system has only been out for a couple months. So right now it actually represents about the best time to buy one... as later you will pay similar prices but have a system getting closer and closer to obsolecense until Dell again upgrades the line.... probably in a year or two.

The So So:

The Video card is standalone which is good. But its dated tech which largely obviates its impressive ability to allocate 512mb of memory. Strong at CAD it is weak at games.. thoguh still fairly capable for the current crop. It will soon be lacking for newer games so if you are looking for a strong gamer look elsewhere.

The mouse options... the Touchpad and pointing stick are iffy. The pointing stick is consistent with my experience with Thinkpads. The rubber nub does not lend itself quite as well as the slightly more spongy red nub of IBM fame(infamy) but its sensitivity is very similar. The Touchpad itself is not so hot. Sensitivity seems sporadic and I have been playing endlessly with the setting to see if it improoves. The side scrolling function is serviceable but not ideal. Would have much preffered and actual seperate wheel but then I am used to that. A week of use and it has all gelled fairly well but it is in the so so department for a reason. It works and it does its job. But there is nothing to write home about here.

The ambilight sensor. This thing is a good idea... but without a personal slider to atempt to teach the thing your personal tastes it is largely a waste. Most folks seem to think it sets to dim by default and thus end up swiftly turning it off. Count me as one of them. I keep trying it and keep turning it off. If I could perhaps influence how it decides what an optimal setting is it might work. As is I can determine its range of options... but that just often means it sets at the lowest possible I set instead of dynamically ranging about between the values I select. Nice idea... but not so hot in reality.

Speakers: For a laptop they are not great, and not horrible. They are stero and unlike so many their placement means that their sound will not be constantly muffled by the placement of your hands while typing. The Blue tooth stack supports A2DP so go for some bluetooth stero action if you really want quality sound without the wires... else its still ye olde headphones for good tunes or any base to speakof.

The Bad.

No Camera. While this is debatable whether it should be an issue with a business machine I have to say it is one. Video conferencing is getting more and more common and a built in system makes it SO much easier to deal with potentially. On the other hand this feature is just staring to show up and most examples have their quirks. However there is certainly space at the top of the screen frame for one and it probably should have been done. So not having it built in is one less thing to go wrong in the long run. Still have to mark it as a should have had... but I can understand the decision not to include.

Lack of hotkeys. There is a crapload of space on the top section for more keys and or multimedia capacity. yeah its a work machine but the technology to do DVD playback without booting is minimal... and the desire to play MP3's while working damn near universal. Business does not mean it must be inhuman. It irks me to no end that most of the user friendly options like non boot media play and lots of hot keys are often relegated only to the shoddy build quality 'entertainment' and budget lines in almost every case.

The fingerprint reader. I was actually very tempted to get this add on but the way they implement it made me decide against it. It is put betwene the buttons of the touch pad. Again you have plenty of space on this system. Why not designate another area for adding the scanner. Top left wher the Latitude moniker is would have been excellent.

Lack of a smart card included. I have a smart card reader but no smart cards. Yeah this is supposed to be a corporate thing. However individuals can have uses for the tech as well. This one is just silly. There should have been a card or two sent with the system.

The WUXGA screen. Like I said it is both a great strength and great weakness. Actually its less the resolution and more the mechanics of it. To fit all those pixels in a 15.4 screen it has to use a .17 dot pitch. By comparison your typical 17 and 19 inch montior sporting XGA will have .25 or .23 normally. This compacts the image a great deal and displays the same amount of information in a much smaller area. 32% less space in fact. So take your current text and imagine it 32% smaller. No problem you say... you can increase it. Well yes and no. There are many many many unchangeable font sizes you will encounter. And webpages simply are not designed with this combination of high resolution in a small area in mind. This high density information sites often come out miniscule... and to add insult to injury the width they display in is hard coded and will not expand to adapt to your far reaching screen. Which means when you do increase the font sizes it does it in the already defined width and you often end up with columns containing 3-4 words a line. In addition increasing windows default fonts simply is not gracefully performed across all the system utilities. And even then you still wind up with unchangeable warning/info/settings screens that often can be very difficult to read.

However where you are able to make adjustments or where documents/programs are fexible enought to allow for higher sized fonts and larger screen resolutions gracefully you find yourself with scads and scads of useable space you never dreamed of having on a laptop before. Especially one as portable as this.

Now you do not have to get the WUXGA. More Typical WSXGA and XGA wide screen resolutions are available. However the Dot pitch for the WSXGA is still around .19 so it and the WUXGA are very close. If you are flopping between the two and have good eyesight and often yearn for just a few more columns of screen space I would go with the WUXGA. The readability difference really isn't that high and you can always set the WUXGA screen down... while you cannot up the WSXGA machine. Frankly if you can read the WSXGA screen then you will be able to handle the WUXGA screen.

Lack of S-Video and DVI. I almost would have preffered a DVI in place of the DSUB. You can adapt a DVI to a dsub without giving up the potential quality of a DVI input when available. Not so when going to DSUB from a DVI source. Also the lack of Svideo is almost criminal. As a solace it is available through the docking pad. But frankly and S-video connection is a need for mobility... not sure what need for Svideo one would have from a docking environment. Certainly not as much a need as a mobile warrior looking to provide their own DVD playback.... or odball presentation options etc... There certainly isn't a lack of space on the back for such options. Put a DVI in place of the DSUB and provide an adaptor, and put an S-video next to the power socket.

The ... Ehhhh whatever.

The serial port and IRDA. For those that need it I suppose they are great. But they are dieing means of connecting devices... and serial in particular has many many many adaptation options between USB, firewire, express slot and PCMCIA cards. Honestly I can't imagine there would be more folks calmoring for a serial connection at this point than they would for an S-video... or better. HDMI output port.


The would be nice ?

Touchscreen. The tech for touch screens has reached the point where I imagine in a couple years it will be odd to have a system without one. If nothing else it would provide the ability to do some highly customizable interfaces and soft key systems for system interaction.

Upgradable video card. come on now Dell (and laptop makers in general) The one thing that makes systems obsolete faster than anything these days is the lack of ability to keep up with video display demands. The onsent of 3d in the more typical OS and work ap environment courtesy of Aero in Vista means that the Laptop immunity to such issues is about to soon end. Right now folks mostly work with Laptops and as work aps have rarely needed or required high end graphics capacity they have gotten something a free ride in this aspect. But Microsoft has just opened up pandora's box with the push to make 3d a far more common need. Breakthroughs in user interfaces are likely to come via 3d being readily available to developers... and laptops are going to have to be able to keep up without forcing folks to buy new ones each time the tech rathcets it up another level.