Dell Latitude Z Review Discussion

When you want to buy a good looking business notebook you are typically limited to industrial designs which are rugged and durable but not really stylish. Usually the only attractive option was the Apple MacBook Pro up until recently. Dell hopes to change that with the new Latitude Z ... a super thin, high-end, 16-inch notebook aimed directly at business professionals.

Read the full content of this Article: Dell Latitude Z Review

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Another possible negative to what could be a very nice machine - the hard drive is apparently some type of thin form factor SSD. Can you confirm?

 

Going off the HDtune model number it appears that with its given capacity it is a 1.8" drive. I am pretty sure the T400s also used the same size.

 

Somebody at Dell is obsessed with notebooks that are very thin for their class. As with the Adamo, I don't understand why anyone would buy this unless they care mostly about how the machine looks. It's still over 5lbs and has maybe half the performance of machines in that weight class at over twice the price. It's unique, but not in a good way (although if they can reduce the price by a factor of 4, I'd buy one as a present for somebody).

 

Seriously... They keep churning out these over these thin and lights with sub par performance and battery life. Price tag is about 2x too much, so they end up on sale for 50% off.
What's the point of using CULV processors and IGP if its gonna get crappy battery life and doesn't run any cooler.

 

This is really a halo model, representing the epitome of the Dell business line. While it's certainly very nice-looking and has some cool features, very few people will actually buy this model.

And look at Adamo prices now. They've certainly fallen quite a bit

Great review, Kevin!

 

You might want to crack the notebook up and check then. There was speculation in the Dell subforum they the Z600 uses a Samsung special form factor SSD that is much thinner than your normal 2.5" or 1.8" drive. If true, no one should count on being able to upgrade their SSD without paying for a highly inflated Samsung OEM drive through Dell.

 

My small business has used Dell Notebooks exclusively for the past 10 years. My last unit was a Vostro 1500 which served me well. In addition to the power of the Core 2 Due processor, I need significant graphics capibility, as do a number of small businesses. It seems as if Dell as gone almost exclusively to the integrated Intel graphics which are a none started for me. Moreover, the new designs are ugly. I am completely befuddled by the keyboards that fold down only to make you type at a 45 degree angle. Really?

I was hoping that XPS Studio 13 would be refreshed with decent graphics capability but am now told by Dell personnel that is has been discontinued. Thus, for the first time in 10 years we are switching over to Sony Vaio Z's. They are more expensive than the Dells but the portability, I5/I7 processors and powerful GPU's make them worth the price to us. We truly feel that Dell's product designers no longer understand our needs.

Bronsky

 

Boy, this thing is butt ugly! *shocked*

 

Looks like the speculation was correct although it looks like just the internals of a 1.8" SSD. Also bonus shots of where all the magic induction happens.

Uploaded through TinyPic since they are kind of big.

http://i45.tinypic.com/2yl8dhg.jpg

 

16" laptop with SU9600 and not even a good battery life? Did Dell's marketing team all got laid off last year or what?

 

seriously, my "old tech" laptop with P8600, ATI 3450, and non-LED screen can achieve the same battery life, with a smaller battery to boot.
for that price, I don't understand why Dell couldn't at least fit in a core i7 UM CPU and switchable graphics

 

for only 3hours battery life, it better have a core i7 620... with a culv chip I really think dell could have done better, a lot better.

if this had.... 8hours battery life would make this all better...

 

That price is extortionate for what your getting imo - never thought I'd say this, but MBP's price tag looks like a bargain next to this... its wireless innovation may become mainstream in the future - but at this point its just a rip-off AFAIK.

 

I think it has a lot to do with the faulty nVidia video cards awhile back. That and trying to get people to buy more expensive models.

 

I rather like the design. Only thing I don't really like is the huge, empty space around the keyboard. They should have made this thing a 13 or 14 incher.

 

Call me crazy, but inductive charging is rather awesome, and the notebook looks stunning. Great review Kevin!

 

lol 10char

 

Umm ... you meant Kevin, right?

 

the price is overkill, .. even kill the new VAIO Z series. notebook not looking good. nice play DELL.
and thanks for the review.

 

I think this is a niche business product for Dell. Not quite a Halo product because they actually want business clients to buy this system, but it's not going to be as popular as the typical Latitude E series (E4200, E4300, E6400, and E6500).

The Z600 is for corporate executives or IT managers who want a nice big screen without a hugely heavy/thick design, a good keyboard, and some cool features like SSDs and inductive charging. This is certainly not going to be a mainstream business notebook for Dell.

 

I've had so many Dell laptops die on me over the years, seen so many companies dump Dell because of poor quality and support, that you could not pay me to use a Dell laptop. This one is full of gimmicks and under powered. I'll take the HP W series any day. Unless I can use a Mac Book Pro. This has nowhere near the build quality of either, or service and support. Business users with a 16-inch screen want more power. Only people who want small light laptops would be satisfied with this underpowered offering. It's no wonder Dell's not selling high end product. They don't understand their customer base and still want to try to get by with poor quality and support. Inductive charging is a gimmick for laptops right now and arguably for handhelds too. They should have put the money into providing decent battery life. I understand the Mac Book Pro is the gold standard but this is in no way a competitor not least because it runs Windows and 32-bit Windows at that. What a joke.

 

The Z600 is a gorgeous design and amazingly thin for a 16" system. I've been drawn to it from the first time I saw one, but the SU9600 processor is the deal breaker for me! It's like seeing an elegant luxury sedan with all the right design features to turn heads...but somehow they put a crappy 4-banger under the hood???

I'd love to see them at least put the 2.13GHz SL9600 in as an option and then it would really offer awesome performance for its size and weight. The SU9600 is a 10W chip and SL9600 is just a 17W, so heat wouldn't increase much, hopefully....we'll see, I suppose.

 

ok ya got me there... it was late! sorry kevin lol

 

I feel that they still don't get the idea of a premium notebook. I mean, MBP or Vaio Z, expensive they are, are very attractive products. This...I don't see why anyone wants this. Its low performance, combined with its mediocre battery life (something with 8Cell+CULV+SSD+X4500 shouldn't have less battery life than My Vaio CW) - it is unacceptable), don't make it an attractive product. Plus, however this in it, it is still bulky with its 16inch LCD. And the price is adding insult to injury....

 

Agreed. I can't see a great many people choosing one of these over an E-series especially when some have quite high requirements for their machines....

 

That's a shame it's not 1.8"

Are you talking about Dell consumer support? Their business support is pretty good, at least on par with HP and IMO better than Lenovo and much better than Apple. And build quality of their Latitudes/Precisions are also around HP/Lenovo and above Apple.

You're right on the battery life and cost, but if they fixed that, I'd get this. I prefer a bigger laptop, not some 13-15" one since especially as you age, majority of users have poorer (nearsighted) vision. For most basic tasks, the CULV should be more than sufficient.

 

I was wondering why it was gone, and assumed it got a refresh. I have no clue why Dell is seceding this part of the market. The current Inspiron 13 that North America gets is by no means a decent competitor to the MBP. The "New" version though, is much nicer looking, and might have a chance.

I wonder if it wasn't selling...

 

4 stars for a $3,600 laptop that can't last 4 hrs with an 8 cell battery, and is slower than the competition?

What the. . .

 

It got serious points for build and design ... but more importantly there's a core philosophy to all the reviews on NotebookReview.com:

We believe there is a buyer for every laptop and a laptop for every buyer.

That one sentence goes to the heart of every review written by our staff and regular contributors.

In other words, while I seriously suspect most people won't be interested in this particular notebook, I think there are a handful of corporate execs or IT guys who would LOVE a 16-inch notebook with a thin (and "relatively" light weight) design, and includes cool features like the Edge Touch display, inductive charging and SSDs (even if they aren't standard SSDs).

This system will be a little more attractive to corporate types who want something roughly the same size as a 17-inch MacBook Pro but don't need MacBook performance and work for a company that only buys computer hardware from Dell. I've worked for a couple of businesses in the past that had exclusive contracts with Dell or HP and only purchased PCs from that one company (in order to get really good discounts).

Sure, the OVERWHELMING majority of notebook users probably aren't going to buy this notebook, but there are a few people out there who will consider the Z600 to be the ideal notebook for their needs.

At the end of the day the Z600 isn't a bad notebook. It just lacks options for 64-bit OS, delivers sub-par performance for its price range/class, and delivers poor battery life by current standards. The design is solid, the feature set is strong, the keyboard is fantastic, and Dell business support is pretty good.

 

Very much true!

 

One of the reasons NBR is my favorite notebook website.

 

That is a very good counter point if Dell has established itself as a pure custom order shop, like building a Hantori sword in Kill Bill, and builds one unique laptop for each customer that comes through the door.

Unfortunately, Dell is not, and they make profit, like everyone else, by selling multiples of the same (or very similar through component CTO) laptops. So the wisdom of picking a particular set of features to be put into a product can be challenged by anyone -- I am sue out of billions of people on this earth someone will find Latitude Z to be perfect for him/her, but the question is how many people similar to this someone exist that can be catered with it and perhaps help Dell gets some market share back.

I am sure there are people looking for an extremely portable or extremely thin 16" and willing to sacrifice some computing power, but how many of them are willing to shell out $3500 up front and then have to look for plug more frequently than something that's 0.5" thicker with just 1" less screen real estate and costs only $600, like Acer AS5810?

Sorry, this still looks more like a nit product than a niche product to me. I am sure there are people who have needs that are very similar to what it delivers, but I highly doubt there are as many of them as Dell's marketing team predicted to justify the launch of this product.

 

No pointing stick = do not want.

 

Well there's not. Every time I've ever had to buy a laptop I've had to make compromises.

This is what I would like:

13.3" form factor. This is to accomodate use on airplanes and trains. 14.1" is a squeeze but feasible.
I'm probably going to use a slice battery so I don't care about thin.
Core i7 quad core. Yes, I do use all 8 threads. A lot. That's why the extra battery.
8GB memory.
Backlit keyboard. These are more useful than I ever suspected.

Now right there we are in trouble. No mobile motherboard does this. One could do it, but they think the market for it is too small. But each of those features occurs on SOME laptop. All of these features occur on NO laptop.

My recent order of the Thinkpad W510 will get as much of this feature set as possible, but trust me. Next time I'm on a long flight with this 15.6" object jammed between me and the reclined seat in front of me, I will have to remind myself why I have to have such a big laptop.

 

Try looking at the HP 8440w if it isn't too late. It is 14" and can have quad core i7 w/ 8GB of memory, though no backlit keyboard.

 

Sounds like you need a special modified version of the new Sony Z...Are you sure you don't want to wait a little till it's out to see if someone can put a 720QM in that baby?

 

820QM for me is the energy efficient compromise downward from the the 920XM. I'm running my desktop Core i7 975 at 4.1 GHz. The 820QM has the bigger cache. For what I do, the 820QM will beat the 720QM noticeably.

I'm configuring this hp 8440w to see what that's like. I didn't find any quad Core i7 business machines at HP when I was ordering a few weeks ago which is strange, that was about the middle of January. I did check HP at that time.

One thing that sounds good about the 8440w is that people criticize the touchpad for being too small. For me, there is no such thing as making the touchpad too small.

Lenovo has pushed my ship date back to 3/08/2010 so it may not be too late.

 

The problem is, you're asking for a lot of high performance components in a relatively small package. You'd have to make the laptop quite thick to accommodate the cooling system for those components, which increases the weight and decreases the system's appeal.

Although, as stated before, the HP Elitebook 8440w may be a good option for you to look at. Because of its magnesium construction, it is heavier than the typical 14" laptop though.

 

Love the inductive charging. In one year time, I hope 14" model would be out at less than half the price.

 

Yeah, I was kind of thinking you would want 820QM or even 920XM. Still, if Sony takes out GT330M (or put a GT310M instead of GT330M) I think 820QM is not out of question for their thermal design that can handle 620M and 330M together and it would be your dream machine I bet. Unfortunately, you are just a little bit outside of the pie they try to carve out in the market.

Good luck with 8440w though, I think the review was pretty good, although I can't remember what CPU the review unit came with.

 

The reviews I've seen for the 8440w (PC World, LAPTOP Mag, Computer Shopper) all had the Core i7-620M.

 

looks nice but way overpriced, basically a business version (although bigger) of the already failed adamo

 

I haven't read the reviews or specs on the Latitude Z yet, but there is one on display for a couple of weeks at our university tech store. Let me tell you, people with $$$ will buy one on looks alone. Incredibly striking in person.

 

The Latitude Z would actually have made more sense in the high-end "Adamo" lineup. All of the Z's major components, except the display, are the same in a the Adamo 13 and Adamo XPS. They all have the 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 ULV processor, Intel 4500MHD graphics, use integrated DRR3 memory and Solid State Drives. The Adamo 13 is 0.65" thick, the Adamo XPS is only 0.39" thick while the Z is 0.57-0.79" thick- all of which were the thinnest model in their respective size classes at their introd+ uction. The Adamo 13 weighs in at 3.97lbs with a 13.4" display and the Adamo XPS is 3.17lbs and also has a 13.4" display. The 16.0" Z600 starts at only 4.5lbs, which is only 0.53lbs more than the smaller Adamo 13.

The Z also has the cutting-edge design features and "look at me" styling that are expected and appreciated on 'halo' models like the Adamos. But the Latitude line has never been concerned with "bling factor" and many mainstream customers that might consider the Z won't ever have a chance to see it. As a Latitude, it's a "business" model while Adamo is a retail/consumer brand. I don't think many companies will be interested in the Z at the $1800+ entry price. The Adamo XPS is currently $2000 and the Adamo 13, which was priced at $2000+ just 10 months ago, starts at only $999. If Latitude Z sales remain at very low levels, I bet we will see a new Adamo XPS 16 model (that just happens to look identical to the Z)!

 

This "review" failed to note that this "thin" computer, as a result, uses a battery that sticks about 5 miles out the back. Utterly pointless.

 

That battery happens to be the extended 8 cell that sticks out. My T400's 9 cell sticks out almost that far. And the stock 4 cell it comes with fits flush with the case and does not stick out.
That said, battery life is CARP.

Here fishy fishy fishy....

 

Actualy if you look here at a user review Battery Life

Over 7 hours if just typing, excel work with Wifi disabled.

A little over 5 hours with the extended battery while watching a movie.

A little less than 5 hours while browsing the internet and watching a streaming movie.
Truly the funniest way to get extreme battery life is to turn everything in high contrast colors lol, i tried once in class and man the battery bar indicator was put to a halt! lol

 

The adamo already sucks in battery life now we have the LatitudeZ

 

Kevin Im going to have to stop you right there, and ask you to not speak about my beloved business class notebooks like that.