Latitude D810 vs. Inspiron 6000d

Hi there.

I am looking for a laptop for my business that will be not only good for office apps but also allow me to use Photoshop, Corel Draw etc... The ability to fire up a 3d app once in a while wouldn't hurt either though I am not expecting miracles with an X300 or X600.

I don't need to carry this laptop around for long periods of time as I live a block from my business and I drive to any appointments I might have. But I expect I will be carrying the laptop back and forth for the short walk to and from work fairly often (likely every day)

So, I started looking at an Inspiron 6000d, thinking it was a nice all around machine with a decent graphics card. The one thing I "did" notice was that the Dell ram upgrades were a tad expensive on this machine. This inspired me to:

a) Consider ordering a 6000d with only 256M if possible and buy a 1Gig stick elsewhere and save a hundred or so dollars (Canadian).

b) Look at what else Dell had to offer.

Mucking about on the Dell site, I decided to price out a Latitude D810. Interestingly, with a similar config (in fact, with a faster processor and X600 graphics) the D810 comes in cheaper than the 6000d and also includes a longer standard warranty (3 years vs 1 year). Shipping is free on the 6000d but $125 on the Latitude. Even then, the D810 is still less expensive. And that's before I upped the 6000d warranty to 3 years.

I know the D810 lacks firewire (don't need it in a laptop) and an internal SD card reader (nice option since I will be using the machine to edit photos from my Coolpix but I can buy an external USB 2.0 one for next to nothing or use the Nikon supplied cable so it's no deal breaker). Other than that, the systems look quite similar. The D810 is very slightly larger, weighs about the same (slightly less actually I believe), has similar battery life, has the same screen options, has as good or slighly better graphics options (an X600 vs. an X300). It also has the added benefit of being "tougher" than the 6000d.

Am I missing something obvious here? Am I wrong in assuming the D810 is as good or better product than the 6000d but at the better price? It's quite possible I am missing something so I would definitely be interested in hearing opinions on this. Is there any particular reason, other than firewire and a built in SD card reader to consider the 6000d over the D810?

Any input would be appreciated.

Adam.

 

You migh want to consider our "What should I buy?" FAQ posted in the hardware forum and post there. Without knowing your bufget and needs besides Photoshop, it is hard to help. If you are looking for a lower end laptop with a decent GPU, the Acer 4402 with ATI x700 card might be a nice fit. I think it goes for around $1500CAN, You can upgrade the warranty on Acer's website. Good Luck.

 

I agree with zazonz, it all depends on what you want to do. If you are comparing the i6000d to the D810, then I suggest going with the D810 as the ATI X600 will be a lot better than the ATI X300. The X600 is still not the best graphics solution out there. It is not bad but the ATI X700 with 64MB of dedicated memory will outperform the X600 with 128MB of dedicated RAM. I would look else where for a notebook especially since you are in Canada and Dell tends to screw our neighbors to the north (and pretty much every country out there by not offering coupon codes or outrageous deals).

I would check HP's website and Acer's website (though Acer's website doesn't sell computers directly, you can still see their lineup) and see if you can't find what you are looking for.

The D810 looks pretty good, I would get it over the i6000d if you were choosing between the two. But even the Gateway that Best Buy (Future Shop in Canada) sells with the AMD Athlon 64 3700+ processor and the ATI X600 graphics card would be better than the D810. Good luck in your search.

 

I have a M70, a D810 with a better graphics card. I have loved this thing from the start. After 3 years of pain with an Inspiron after 2 Latitudes it was a pleasure to go back to the much better designed Latitudes. The new line is tough, has a great keyboard (so much better than most notebook keyboards -no flex at all) which has spill-protection, and a HD with impact-protection. It is nice to look at - much more so than the Inspiron line, IMHO. The D810 is an ideal business notebook for those with relatively small amounts of carrying. Unlike the Inspirons it doesn't come with a lot of rubbish software slowing the beast down. To compare the D810 with the i6000, a good pair of reviews by the same very fine reviewer can be seen, for the D810 @ http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=673&cid=10,
and for the i6000 @ http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=655.
Note that the reviewer has it wrong on the number of USB ports in the i6000: it has 4, just like for the D810. There is a very helpful review of the M70 @ http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2302, which in may ways is also applicable to the D810 - some important information on build quality.

 

I beleive the i6000, which isthe laptop i chose, is more for home use. Dont get me wrong i take mine to work and work on it. But the d810 would be a much better choice, It is a little lighter, and a little tougher than the i6000, but if it were me, and i had the money, the m70 would be my choice

 

Thanks for all of your replies.

zazonz and kornchild2002:

I wasn't really looking for a recommendation per-se just a confirmation (or the opposite) that I was indeed not crazy in thinking the D810 was overall the better machine for less money.

As to looking elsewhere, I have done that. I see lots of machines in the $1500 range (Canadian). But they are generally WXGA (I really think WSXGA would be nice), have 512M installed (I need 1G+) and have XP Home installed (I would like XP Pro). As well, they tend to come with a 1 year warranty. Every time I find a config that matches the D810 (though sometimes with a better GPU) they come out more expensive than the D810 and not by just a few dollars. I didn't find the Gateway machine mentioned here on either the futureshop.ca or bestbuycanada.ca sites.

antskip:

Thanks for the info. I didn't realize they were basically the same machine.

Delvien:

So, are you happy with the 6000? What GPU did you get (if the X300, did you get the 64M or 128M version)? What do you use the laptop for? The M70 would definitely be nice but it's much more expensive (like $800+ more expensive). The M20 is closer and the FireGL 64M is probably OK but then the M20 has got a smaller 14.1" screen.

So far the only machines I have seen that can allow me to improve on the D810 for similar or less money are Asus barebones machines like the Z71V.

The only option I have otherwise is to stick with a WXGA screen and maybe XP Home as well. Then the options are more plentiful.

Anyhow, I wish I could actually "see" a Dell system. I will go out today to look at various other machines and see what's what.

Thank you all.

Adam.

 

I highly doubt the 6000D costs more than the D810 as the D810 is a business machine, perhpas you got them mixed up. As far as performance goes, the 6000D would be more useful as a multimedia machine though its video card, like the D810 is lacking. The D810 most definitley costs ALOT more than the 6000D and you can use coupons on the 6000D. Have you looked at the 9300? It has a 17 inch screen and a 6800go 256 meg video card that would be much better for photo editing and 3dapps as would its larger screen, the 9300 is priced almost the same as the 6000D and is also cheaper than the D810. The new inspiron models do have a mag alloy in the chassis and lcd lid, making them a much better build quality than previous inspiron models. If you want a better business machine wiht a decent video card but more expensive, you will have to look at the Precision M70.

 

I have tried it several times and the D810 is cheaper unless you skimp on the 6000d's warranty and don't get XP Pro. But that would be comparing apples to oranges.

With XP Pro, 1Gig (2 dimms), 40gig HD, 8X DVD burner, 9 cell batteries etc... the D810 is cheaper. Keep in mind, the D810 at this point has the longer warranty, has X600 graphics instead of X300 and is using a Pentium M 750 to the 6000d's 740. If I really wanted to be really nasty and make the 6000d look overpriced, I could configure each with a Pentium M 770. That adds just $292 to the price of the Latitude. And the Inspiron? $700. Ouch.

Now, to be fair, you DO get a free Dell 720 printer with the Inspiron but frankly, a $69 printer as a throw isn't exactly a windfall.

Dell coupons? In Canada? Sure, once in a while a free shipping coupon or a $150 off coupon. But the $150 off coupon at this point only applies to a system I am not interested in, a 6000 with integrated graphics, or the 9300.

The 9300 looks very nice but it might be a tad big (although it's just an inch or so wider than the 6000). It would sure help if there was a Dell store (there are some Dell "kiosks" in local malls where I might get lucky and see a 9300). I went to see some 15.4" units today. They were bigger than I thought they would be but not too big. Most were WXGA except for an Acer Ferrari unit which was WSXGA and had X700 graphics ($2350 with 1 year warranty). Looked at a Toshiba M40 with Geforce 6600. Also saw a Fujitsu Lifebook with an X300 (not so good) but the screen was beautiful. Nicer than the Toshiba, though I did see them in 2 different stores.

So now I am completely confused.

Adam.

 

At the office where I work, we are a Dell shop, and don't buy anything else than Dells.

We have a lot of new latitudes - they are beautiful machines, very well built, durable, and have a nice warranty. I recommend that you go with the D810, it's a much better machine!