Newest Latitude makes a good first impression - Updated!

After three months of owning the D620, I am happy to report that it is still running perfectly. A BIOS update has reduced some of the excessive heat that I reported before. Additionally, a change in the USB BIOS settings virtually eliminates the noise I encountered while the unit is on battery power.

Review - Dell Latitude D620 notebook computer

I’ve been evaluating the Dell Latitude D620 over the past week, and so far I think it has the potential to be an excellent business notebook.

Here are the specifications:

Intel Core Duo T2300 microprocessor (Dual Core, 1.67 GHz, 667 MHz front side bus, 2MB shared L2 cache)
Intel 945GM chipset (includes integrated graphics controller)
512MB DDR2 SDRAM, 533 MHz
40GB SATA HDD, 5400RPM
CD-RW/DVD modular drive
56 Watt*Hr 6-cell LiIon battery

14” Widescreen WXGA display (1280x800 native resolution), Ambient light sensor
Mono speaker (2 watts)
SigmaTel High Definition Audio chip

US Keyboard
Point Stick and Trackpad

Dell Wireless 1390 (802.11b and g wireless adapter)
WiFi detection device (“WiFi Catcher”)
Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet
Connexant 56k modem

4x USB2 ports, PC Card, Smart Card, headphone jack, microphone jack, IR port, serial port, VGA-out, Kensington lock slot.

3-year warranty (mail-in depot service).

Dimensions (HxWxD): 32mm (1.25”) x 337mm (13.3”) x 238mm (9.3”)
Mass: 2.27 kg (5.0 lbs) with 6-cell battery and optical drive.


Build Quality

The D620 feels very solid in my hands, and there’s no flex to the chassis. The base material cover is constructed of plastic rather than magnesium alloy or carbon fiber, but the assembly feels sturdy nonetheless. A hard magnesium alloy shell makes up the LCD housing, which attaches to the base with two thick hinges. The hinges appear to be plastic, although I’ve read in Dell’s product literature that they have steel components designed to be more rugged than previous hinge designs. Only time will tell if the hinges will hold up well, but for the moment they are nice and stiff, and feel as durable as the steel hinges found in ThinkPads.

Two good features on the LCD housing are worth mention. First, there’s a single stainless steel sliding latch that keeps the lid closed. This latch closes with a very satisfying click, and can be released using only one hand. This is much improved over the cheap-feeling release button on the older D610 and D620 series. Second, Dell places rubber stoppers along the edges of the LCD bezel, preventing the keyboard and point stick from coming into contact with the LCD when the lid is closed. This ensures that no greasy key or point stick marks form on the display.


Input Devices

I am impressed with the keyboard on the D620. When I reviewed the D600 three years ago, my chief complaint was the shallowness of the key travel and the flexing of the keyboard unit. Someone at Dell might have been listening, because the keyboard on the D620 is a joy to type on. Key travel is good, and feedback is superb. Furthermore, there’s not a hint of flexing anywhere on the keyboard. It feels like I’m typing on my old Dell Latitude CPI from 1998! Integrated into the keyboard unit are a large power button and volume buttons, all of which are easy to use and provide good feedback.

The mouse devices are generally well designed, though not as impressive as the keyboard. The point stick has reasonable sensitivity and is easy to configure and control. The buttons, like the keyboard, have good travel and feedback, but my complaint here is that there’s no scroll wheel, a feature that I find indispensable on my ThinkPad T40. I have no complaints about the TrackPad, which is feels accurate, has configurable scroll and tap zones, and has two large buttons that also travel well and provide good feedback.

The bottom line is that the D620 has input devices that will please 95% of the notebook community. The lack of a scroll key is my only complaint.


Output Devices

The widescreen WXGA display has a native resolution of 1280x800 and maximum brightness of 185 nits (there is an option for a 1440x900 display with 200 nits brightness). This doesn’t sound impressive, but it should satisfy the vast majority of business users. At first glance, the matte anti-glare coating doesn’t provide the stunning clarity of the glossy screens on most new consumer grade notebooks, but office users will be happy with this display because it won’t reflect overhead lighting into their eyes. If you want to use your notebook for DVDs and multimedia entertainment, buy a different machine with a glossy display. But if you want to get work done, this display is excellent.

One feature integrated into the display is an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts panel brightness depending on the outside level of light. A user can adjust the aggressiveness of the brightness adjustment using included configuration software, but I prefer to adjust the panel brightness manually, so I disabled the sensor.

Likewise, the speaker system appears unimpressive at first. Unlike most notebooks, the D620 has a single mono speaker instead of a stereo speaker. I thought this would make for a terrible audio experience, but in reality, the single speaker seems no worse than the stereo speakers on comparable business notebooks.


Performance

I haven’t run many benchmarks, but I can say that the system feels very responsive due to the Intel Core Duo processor. The Core Duo contains two processing cores, so if one piece of software hogs all the processing cycles in one core, the user still has a second core to do other tasks. For example, when using iTunes to encode CDs on my old ThinkPad T40, iTunes would use up all the CPU processing power of the single-core Pentium M. This meant that I really couldn’t use the machine to do anything else while I was waiting for the encoding to finish. In contrast, with the Core Duo, I can encode music off a CD and suffer little or no performance hit on applications that I am concurrently running.

I ran 3Dmark03 to test the graphics capabilities of the 945GM chipset. Sadly, the 945GM performs terribly in 3D applications, scoring a mere 1300 in the benchmark at XGA resolution (in comparison, a Radeon 9600 in my desktop computer scored 2500, even when paired with a vastly inferior Athlon processor at 1.47 GHz). Fortunately, the D620 has a more powerful nVidia Quadro GPU as an upgrade option. I would strongly recommend that purchasers upgrade to the more powerful GPU if they intend to use any sort of 3D heavy applications.

Battery life seems to be about 4:30 on average when I’m doing light tasks (MS office and web), with the display at half brightness and WiFi enabled.


General Comments – What I Liked

Having 4 USB ports is convenient. There are two ports on the right hand side and two in the rear.

The integrated WiFi detection device works even if the computer is not powered on. Simply slide a switch on the left hand side and an LED will light to inform you if a WiFi network is nearby.

The D620 is compatible with most D series accessories. D bay devices like optical drives and enhanced batteries from older D series machines will work in the D620. Likewise, D series docking stations will also work with the D620. Unfortunately, batteries are not compatible between the D620 and D600/610.

There are handy LED indicators built into the right hinge that inform the user as to HDD activity, AC or battery power, and whether WiFi and BlueTooth are enabled.

At 2.27 kg (5 pounds) with battery and optical drive, the D620 is a very reasonable weight for a midsized machine. Overall, the machine provides a full set of features without the bulk that desktop replacement and gaming machines come with.


General Comments – What I Didn’t Like

- The bottom of the D620 can get very hot, especially near the CPU vents in the back of the machine. This can make the D620 uncomfortable to work with if it is on one’s lap. The system fan does not seem to turn on until the system gets extremely toasty.

UPDATE: Dell recently released the A03 BIOS (A02 was installed), which appears to turn the system fan on when the CPU reaches 45C instead of 55C. The D620 runs noticeably cooler after the BIOS update.

- On battery power, the D620 emits strange high pitched noises. Some people can’t hear them, but I can, and I find it slightly irritating. I suspect this may be a Windows driver problem, because the noises don’t occur when I’m changing BIOS settings while running on battery power.

UPDATE: Going into the system BIOS, and changing the USB mode from "legacy" to "High-Speed" will almost completely eliminate the battery buzzing problem.


Conclusion

In the week I've had to evaluate this machine, I like it a lot more than I thought I would. For the most part, it feels as usable as my ThinkPad T40, and it is light-years ahead of the Latitude D600 and D610 machines I've used. If the D620 holds up as well as I think it will, Dell has a winner.