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Business users who spend a good deal of time on the road will find a lot to like about Dell Inc.s new Latitude D610. The laptop combines portability; good performance and battery life; and nice features, including four USB ports and a full-size keyboard—all at a reasonable price, starting at $1,384.
Click here to read the full review of the Latitude D610.
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Business users who spend a good deal of time on the road will find a lot to like about Dell Inc.s new Latitude D610. The laptop combines portability; good performance and battery life; and nice features, including four USB ports and a full-size keyboard—all at a reasonable price, starting at $1,384.
The Latitude D610, which has a starting weight of 4.67 pounds, features Intel Corp.s next-generation Centrino mobile architecture (code-named Sonoma), providing an Intel 915 chip set that now supports PCI Express. In addition to the chip set, the Centrino platform comprises Intels Pentium M Processor and the vendors newest wireless and graphics solutions.
The Latitude D610 eWEEK Labs tested, which lists for $1,687, features a 1.6GHz Pentium M 730 Processor, 512MB of 400MHz DDR2 (double data rate 2) SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM) and a 40GB hard drive that spins at 5,400 rpm. The laptop is armed with a 14.1-inch XGA 1,400-by-1,050-pixel display with a 130-degree viewing angle and includes Intels Media Accelerator 900 integrated graphics.
The system we evaluated includes an Intel Pro/Wireless 2200BG networking card and Bluetooth 2.0; an Intel Pro/Wireless 2915ABG card is also available.
In performance testing, the Latitude D610 delivered a strong 17.6 on the Business Winstone 2004 benchmark, finishing slightly ahead of a comparably equipped IBM T42 laptop we benchmarked last year. The Business Winstone 2004 benchmark tests performance as a computer runs a suite of desktop applications.
While it couldnt beat the IBM T42 on the Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 benchmark, the Latitude D610 still scored a solid 20.6. (The IBM T42 scored an impressive 21 on the benchmark.) Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 tests how drives perform real-world applications while executing scripts that represent user workloads.
Aside from performance, road warriors are most concerned about battery life. During the BatteryMark test, we got a respectable 4 hours of battery life from the Latitude D610. (And because business laptops see a lot of travel time, we like that Dell offers a three-year warranty on the system.)
The Latitude D610 comes with Dells TPM (Trusted Platform Module) security technology and an integrated smart-card reader. The TPM, which is integrated with the systems hardware, lets users create and store encryption keys.
Also available is Dells OpenManage client software, a suite of hardware configuration and management utilities, as well as backup/ recovery solutions based on Altiris Inc. technology.
The laptop we tested includes a CD-RW/DVD ROM combo; an upgrade to a DV+/-RW burner will cost $80 more. Organizations that have docking solutions from other D-series laptops can use them with the D610. A port replicator costs $199, while a docking station costs $359.
Senior Writer Anne Chen can be reached via e-mail at anne_chen@ziffdavis.com.
Editors Note: This story was corrected to accurately describe the Latitude D610s integrated graphics hardware.
