Have had very good experiences
Aug 05 '00
The company I work for bought about 30 Dell Latitude and Inspiron laptops over tha past year, and my experiences as well as opinions of coworkers are very good.
The build quality of the Latitudes is very high, those things are really, really sturdy! I've used mine on travels overseas, field trips, daily work, basically everywhere, and it's NEVER failed on me.
The parts:
The keyboard on the Latitudes is very nice, excellent tactile feel, and sturdy. It doesn't bend when you hit the keys, whereas on the Inspirons that happens.. the keyboard bends slightly when you type. Also, the Inspiron's overall keboard quality seems low to me, I do not like it at all.
The display on the Latitude I have is only 13.3" TFT, but I much prefer it o the Inspirons' 14.1" because it is much clearer and sharper, at least on the models we have.
The touchpads on both models are sufficient. They work, but they could work better I think.. my touchpad gets inaccurate in warm temperatures and almost unuseable in 90+ degrees. I suggest external mice anyway.
Expansion ports aplenty: USB, 2 serial, one parallel, one PS/2 on the latitude, not sure about Inspirons. Never had trouble with any of the ports. The expansion port for the dock works quite well, I use the dock at work. Undocking and docking is quick and easy, nothing breaks off when you're a little grumpy on monday mornings and a little rough on it.
The Latitude power supply is great! Albeit it's an external one, the fact it can run on 110V and 220V without a manual switch is very nice for me when I travel. Also it is fairly small and light. I haven't looked close at the Inspiron ones, however.
The battery life on my Latitude is poor, this is a serious downfall. After 1.5 hours of work the battery is pretty much done, if I compile source code often it even goes quicker. The hard disk and CPU seem to drain the poor battery quickly. If I take it easy and do light tasks, it'll last up to 2 hours.. not enough in my opinion. Then again, it's a PII-266, maybe the newer models are better.
Software support from Dell is excellent. They still make BIOS updates for my oldish laptop, maintain drivers for all hardware components, and it is fast and easy to find necessary updates.
What else.. PCMCIA slots never gave me a problem, we've had trouble with an Inspiron where the little knobs to pop out a card broke off. No problem with Dell, they replaced the whole motherboard a day later (Extended 3 year warranty).
Talking about warranty:
The extended parts&labor pays off! Do not buy a laptop and skimp on warranty, ever! I've had 2 CD-ROMs fail in the Latitudes and 3 Floppy drives, and Dell replaced them without asking twice, so get that warranty. Dell is quick to respond and send out people, we've never had to wait long.
Well I think that sums it up.. reliable and stellar performers overall. The Inspirons could use better keyboards, though.
Dell provides very good service, quick and friendly with no hassles... what more could you want ?
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Epinions.com ID:
hansmuff
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Location: PA, USA
Reviews written: 36
Trusted by: 3 members
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