Made my final choice and I'm sticking with it

Latitude D820
SYSTEM COMPONENTS

Latitude D820 Qty 1
Intel® Core™ Duo T2500 (2.00GHz) 667Mhz Dual Core, Genuine Windows® XP Professional, SP2, with media Unit Price $2,301.00

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Catalog Number: 4
Module Description Show Details

Latitude D820 Intel® Core™ Duo T2500 (2.00GHz) 667Mhz Dual Core
Operating Systems Genuine Windows® XP Professional, SP2, with media
LCDs 15.4 inch Wide Screen WUXGA LCD Panel
Memory 1.0GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 1 DIMM
Internal Keyboard Internal English Keyboard
Graphics 512MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 120M TurboCache™
Hard Drives 80GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 7200RPM
Fingerprint Reader for Added Security Touchpad with UPEK® Fingerprint Reader
Floppy Drive No Floppy Drive
Bluetooth Dell Wireless® 350 Bluetooth Module
AC Adapter 90W A/C Adapter
Optical Drive - Modular 24X CD-RW/DVD w/ Cyberlink PowerDVD™
Wireless LAN (802.11) Dell Wireless™ 1390 802.11g Mini Card
Resource CD Resource CD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers
Batteries 9 Cell Primary Battery
Hardware Support Services 3 Year Mail-In Economy Plan
Onsite System Setup No Onsite System Setup
File System NTFS File System for all Operating Systems
Miscellaneous Latitude D820
Purchase Intent Purchase is not intended for resale.

TOTAL:$1,895.20



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Total Price
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$1,895.20



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$39.00



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Total Price
$2,035.01

Will have it next week, can't wait! I build alot of systems myself, and if I could buildmy own laptop, this has everything I want a system to be from the ground up, with only one exception.

The stupid Serial Port connection on the back of it?

Actually I can use it to connect into controlling my old Server which is a redundant rack system running dual P4's on Windows 2000 Server, if I wanted to, but I doubt I'd ever want to connect into it that way. I'd of rather seen that spot replaced with an S-Video out port even though my home TV is a 12" Black and White with out even RCA jacks on it, let alone S-Video.

Alright, I'm kidding, it's a business oriented system, given, but I still think more business users would find better use from an S-Video out for business presentations than what they'd ever use a serial port for. I just can't imagine what anyone this day in age or even within the past 5 years (a milineum in computer years) would want with a serial port on a brand new laptop?

I mean if your buying this system to use for connecting into an old server system then this isn't going to be the laptop you'd buy to do that, you'd buy at best an old system produced when serial ports were still the long past way to go. It already has an old fashioned phone line port with built in dial up modem (thats another feature we could probably do with out) so other than an old fashioned modem connection, what purpose does the serial port do on this otherwise state of the art system?

Everything about the D820 certainly rocks though. I have to give it to Dell for slipping this one in basicly under the un heavily marketed radar. Top quality physicaly, top of the line powerful hardware options, the latest and greatest in security features like finger print recognition and security card.

The XP Pro comes with the Windows CD at no extra cost (you just have to make sure you check the "with media" option).

Since it's hidden under the "Business Systems" line of laptops it comes with all the business benefits. Top quality construction is just the start with the not plastic case and hinges rampant out there right now. The business systems don't come with all that Shove_It_Down_Your_Throat_Ware the "home" systems come with, with or without freakin AOL isn't even an option, it comes without AOL by default (to me that's worth an extra $500 in itself, I hate AOL) and without the tons of extra garbage ware.

Further proving the quality Dell obviously believes this system is worthy of they back it with a 3 year phone and mail in warranty at no additional charge.


For state of the art features, top of the line quality, and absolute best price, there's nothing else out there to compare this model to.

If you order one though, be prepaired, they'll ask you for a business name, don't let this freak you out, you can make up a name. I enterd "G Money the East Street Pimp LLC" and my order went through no problem.

 

Congrats G Money, haha. Your previous post about this line of notebooks and how you believe it is better quality diffinitely has steered me off the 1505 trail. At this point I have considered so many notebooks, whats one more?

Do me a favor and let me know how like thos notebook when it comes in.

 

Serial port is good for me - I want to use a modern laptop yet still be able to easily connect a console cable to manage my routers/switches. I know there are serial to usb converters, but I have heard that they have problems. Business users giving a presentation would plug their projector into the vga port - s-video out looks bad IMHO.
The external case that you can see/touch is still plastic - the magnesium alloy casing is internal, so don't be surprised when you get it. Sure feels solid though, and no screen flexing.
Logging in via finger swipe is cool - still have to do the ctrl-alt-del first though.
Tip: Don't set a BIOS password if you're going to be configuring the security chip to use biometric log-on. The security software can't communicate with the chip then.

 

no S-video?
no SPDIF?
no Firewire1394?
no DVI?
no, thank you

 

/wants a D620

 

How well does it perform? Do you play any games on it? What games? Enquiring minds want to revel in your new toy too?


On another note... Isnt there a svideo option for this? I am sure I saw one.

 

I'm with hurricane. For those that need it (I fall into that with PLC programming and supporting older field instrumentation), it is very nice to find a laptop with a serial port. Yeah you can get a usb to serial and that will work ... usually ... but not 100%. For me that is not good enough when you are already in the field.

Firewire 1394 is on this one. S-video and DVI are on the Dport or Ddock but not on the machine. Works for me.

 

Ahh. Must be the Firewire port I see in the picture. I still would like to know how game play looks on this baby. I have speced one out for myself, and am just about to pull the trigger and buy one.


~Nitehood

 

I'll give a full report once it comes in. Dell warned when ordering that since it's a new model I could expect a delay on recieving of almost a month. This must have been a just incase warning though. I see as soon as my ATM card cleared with them the very next morning they had this thing built and tested, just waiting on the boxing and shipping part now. It's going to arrive ALOT faster than I was warned on their web site when ordering it.

I'll give a full report when I get it on what I think, but in researching everything out there and hearing what the people who have also bought the D820 have had to say I'm sure I'm going to be very happy with it.

Thanks for the tip about the BIOS password. I learned along time ago it's best for me not to set the BIOS password. I go into the BIOS on a new system, make the settings I want, then it could be years before I ever need to go back in, in that amount of time you can guarantee I've long since forgotten what I set the BIOS password to at the time. Yea, that ones bit me in the butt before on a laptop I had where you couldn't just easily reset it to clear a stored BIOS password.

I don't mind hitting the Ctrl Alt Del then swipe my finger, that's going to be kind of cool, I'm really looking forward to that. I won't have to worry about forgetting my password, now all I'll have to worry about is not losing my finger.

Speced out on paper this thing should really rock, it's like someone at Dell snuck this model in with all the right features, quality and price for the true geeks out there that were paying attention enough to find it hidden in amonst all the other clutter.