Dell Latitude Z series

I'm a latecomer to this discussion, but I can corroborate what Dell Bill is saying! I'm often surprised by the postings that I find in the Forums on Dell's very own website- LINK. I'm most surprised by the ones from (legitimately) angry/frustrated customers who have been unable to resolve their issue(s), despite multiple repair attempts or tech support calls. Many of them serve as chronicles to the frequent incompetence of Dell's tech support and/or customer service staff! If I were a Dell exec, I'd be very tempted to remove or edit (censor) a lot of those postings to protect corporate interests (profits and 'image')...

But unless there are blatant TOS violations (swearing/curse words, threats made or obviously malicious claims/accusations with no basis in truth or reality), Dell lets the postings stay! Some of them are cause for embarrassment and never should have escalated to that point. Quite often, a Dell employee will post a response and be humble enough to admit error and apologize! Unfortunately, they don't always seem to the distance and actually fix what's broken (literally and figuratively), but most of the time they are helpful in getting long-overdue resolution!

The Dell Community Forums have also been responsible for helping disgruntled customers identify widespread defects or problems with some recent products! The NVIDIA GPU flaw a few years ago, numerous issues with the early production Studio 15 (1535) models and the current Studio XPS 1640's poor thermal management (ongoing) were publicized in Dell's forums and brought hordes of pissed-off customers together...whether it was always out of the desire to be transparent and take their own bitter pill OR simply lack of attention and further incompetence- who can say for sure???

They could follow Toyota's insidious example- LIE, DENY, DEFLECT, then REPEAT for as long as you can get away with it!!! Granted, I doubt any Dell owners would die as a direct result (unintended acceleration into a tree/wall/oncoming traffic)....but frustration and anger paired with lack of corporate accountability has pushed me to stroke-level a few times (don't get me started on North American Mazda)! But I digress....

 

Well, probably time to revive this Z600 thread. Because of a nice sale at the Outlet this week, I picked up an almost $3000 (new) Z600 for $1146!

Arriving via overnight delivery for super cheap, I unboxed it, and did a quick inspection. Perfect shape. No scratches or dings. Turned it on, and fired up the Windows 7 PRO it came with.

I immediately noticed that even though I purchased Bluetooth, there does not seem to be any Bluetooth software installed. I verified in the BIOS that it was installed, so I had to download the BT 365 driver from dell.com. Also, the touchpad is supposed to be gesture-enabled. It isn't (or at least the software for that isn't loaded either). I'll have to research further.

I must say I like the design and form factor. I don't like the fact that for some reason, the Z600 (and maybe it's just this one unit), makes an annoying high-pitched data sound (similar to what a mosquito sounds like flying close to your ear). Not sure I can put up with that.

The 256GB SSD is plenty fast and everything runs pretty snappy, even with the 1.6Ghz CPU. Display resolution is good, but as was said before, 1920x1080 would have been nice. 1600x900 sure beats 1366x768 though!

There are some terrific deals at the Outlet this week, with the emailed 15% off coupon. If you're thinking of getting a "Z", now would be the time. Substantial savings over new pricing. Would I pay $3000 for one? No way? But just over $1100 for a fully spec'd unit ain't bad!

Oh, one last thing...power adapter. Why do they require a 3-prong cord adapter? I live off of Kensington thin-and-light adapters. I have them everywhere (car, bag, almost every room). But they are 2-prong and when powered off one of them, I get a BIOS error at power-on saying to use the 3-prong AC adapter. It does charge though. I have noticed a slight voltage discharge on my palm, though, when using a 2-prong cord. That metallic border around the "Z" apparently leaks voltage with an ungrounded adapter.

Also, in case anyone wondered, the color of the lid is best described as a black cherry color. The outlet said it was black. It isn't.

UPDATE: After fooling around some more, I've determined that the whining noise is only during CPU Idle time. I am undervolting with RMCLOCK, and there is a fix, using RMCLOCK, that gets rid of the noise by using a HLT command. Not sure I like it though, because it makes task manager show my CPU's at 100% (even though they aren't).

Also, I'm a bit disappointed with the software load Dell did. No bluetooth software was preloaded. No Capture (webcam) software was loaded (or available via download), and no fingerprint reader software was loaded (or available via download).

I did manage to get an Apple Magic Mouse working via bluetooth, with touch scrolling, so that is nice!

 

In case anyone is still monitoring this Z600 thread, there are a new round of 15% coupons and a much lowered price on the Z600 at the Outlet. A maxed out Z600 with 1.6Ghz/4GB/256GB SSD/8 Cell is now $976 after coupon! Unbelievable!!

 

Can the user upgrade the ram memory in these or is it sealed like the vostro v13?

 

It's "built-in", as part of the system board. No slots. Get the 1.6Ghz model and it comes with 4GB.

 

Could someone please answer these question:

1) Is it harder than normal to remove the primary HDD and also add my own HDD to the secondary bay?

2) Can I use both HDD's only without any RAID? I don't want RAID for my setup atm.

3) Are the HDD's 1.8" or 2.5"?

Thanks so much!

 

Just got a Latitude Z last week and currently have one irritating issue...

When I run on battery power, "something" is causing the Win7 desktop manager to stop working and switch the system to "basic".

Manually restarting the DWM through Services brings back Aero, but I cannot seem to figure out what is causing it.

This is with the base Win7 install straight from Dell.

Otherwise, I am really enjoying this laptop. I have the SSD, and as the other poster mentioned...it is very snappy. Battery life is also nothing short of impressive, with Win7 reporting a 7 hour lifecycle before it fully drains.

 

I thought I answered this yesterday, but the post is gone. In any case:

1) Not really possible, since the drives are 1.8" drives and I believe they are just the circuit boards, no enclosure.

2) There is no RAID available on the Latitude Z600 (unless you use something in software or OS). The BIOS does not have that as an option.

3) 1.8", but I think circuit board only.

 

No issues like that here...how long have you had it?

 

OK I have been lusting after a z600 for quite a while.
The deals on Dell Outlet were just too tempting to resist, so I ordered one...
OMG this is probably the nicest laptop you could hope to find right now.I haven't even removed my Alienware M11x once from its sleeve since this one arrived.People who have bashed/passed the Z by need to take another look!