A Refurbished C610 is an excellent value

I bought the C610 (Windows 2000 Pro, 256 Mb, 20 Gb HD, CD-ROM Drive, USB, some time remaining on warranty) at auction on E-Bay, from a subsidiary of Dell that manages the auctions of refurbished Dell machines. I had compared reviews; right out of the box, the C610 compared equally with the IBM Thinkpad 721 or 722. On auction or at Overstock.com they were both going for around $650, which was a little too much. So I looked for CPUs at 750 Mhz or so, which were going for less. Suddenly there was this auction for a C610 with a 1 Ghz cpu that was 5 minutes from closing. I checked out the rest of the components, and bid $507.76, and won the auction! It's been almost a year, and the price range has not gone down.

While the published reviews were excellent, you should know that the Dell Latitude C610 has a major problem with the touchpad/pointing stick. On my refurbished C610 the pointing stick is very stiff. The touchpad was awkward to use at first, but in not very much time I got comfortable with it. The problem came up in the last month before the warranty ran out. The cursor (using the touchpad) would go its own way, or submarine--disappear from the screen--when asked to respond. For example, my earthlink.net Spamblocker has a category of "suspect e-mail" with checkboxes to mark to select items to discard, or the occasional message from someone new that you want to keep. Working the checkboxes was impossible. I had to find a fix, and did. Yes, Dell would replace the keyboard, but I didn't want the downtime, and the possibility that it would happen again, as the Dell forums indicate. So I solved the problem myself.

With the cursor problem fixed, the Dell Latitude C610 is an excellent machine. I discovered that it was *much* faster than my Compaq Presario 5WV271, with a 900 MHz CPU, and frequent defragmenting. The best comparison was downloading virus updates and then running the antivirus software. It took about 75% of the time, and the C610 modem is slower (56K) than the Presario (56K v.92). I discovered that an Intel Pentium M (III) is a much faster CPU than its rating of 1000 K. I am tempted to try it on an external TV card, which needs a Pentium (IV, non-M) at 2.4 Gig, or so.

Another plus is the Windows 2000 OS which is so much more stable than Windows ME (on the Presario).

I am giving away the Presario desktop; the C610 is functioning as a desktop replacement. I am gradually expanding it, with a CD-RW/DVD Combo drive to replace the CD-Rom drive, and a 2.0 USB PC Card and external hard drive. I may increase the memory soon, also.

The display is 14" TFT, sharp and clear. It looks great with downloaded movies and DVDs. There is a tinny loudspeaker; I use external speakers of several kinds, one for the classroom, another for DVDs, and earphones, occasionally. All of these produce excellent sound quality (to my monaural perception) and adequate volume.

I tell myself that somehow I lucked out on a really fast machine, and have gained a year or two in which I don't have to get a Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP, or update all my software to run on Windows XP or the next one after that.

The down side: I'm 4'll", and my last laptop was 3 1/2 pounds. This laptop is twice that, and really very heavy. The only consolation is that the IBM Thinkpad 21 would have been just as heavy.

NOTE: each refurbished C610 has a different configuration: some come with more memory, or even a CD-RW/DVD+-ROM, or with Windows XP installed, so don't assume what you'll get, but check carefully. Also, the cursor problem is perfectly fixable. A half point off for the weight, otherwise it's a good buy.