Dell Latitude D430 – A Good rig for the Road Warrior

Anybody who has ever used or owned a laptop always wishes for a unit that has a powerful processor, huge ram, tons of hard disk space but is lightweight. Ask any seasoned road warrior who has to carry work while on travel – their primary requirement is a light laptop that has the juice to keep up with their computing requirement. I haven’t been that much of a road warrior for months now but I still prefer a light yet powerful notebook.

Recently, I was issued a Dell Latitude D430 laptop and not being a fan of Dell computers, I was skeptical of how the computer would perform. When I first saw the box that the laptop came in with, I told myself that it could be a mother of a laptop: bulky and heavy.

I was wrong.

The D430 is light, weighing about 1.28-1.3 kgs and measuring 11.6” x 8”.25” x 1”. Checking the specs sheet, I found out that my D430 came with an Intel 1.33Ghz U770 Core 2 Duo processor (personally, I prefer an AMD Althlon X2), 2Gb Ram and a Samsung HS122JC 120GB hard disk. The power-button of the unit is placed at the right side (top-most). It’s placement is a little bit recessed but it’s quite responsive so no problem for users with big fingers. The D430 also has a built-in SD card reader although I wish they’d also put in either a Sony MemStick reader or a CF card reader. But hey, who am I to complain much about? I got this thing for free.

The chassis of this baby is made from magnesium while the covers i.e. skin is made from hard, packed plastic. Construction is pretty sturdy. As far as appearances go, the D40 is primarily black and gray as this is a business notebook. The black and gun-metal gray finish gives the D430 a nice….formal look. Hey, it’s a business notebook so formal is good.

I was mildly surprised that the unit comes with an extra battery pack (9-cell). I don’t know if the extra battery pack comes standard with the order or was purchased as an add-on. My only beef is with the DVD-R/W external drive: it didn’t come with a housing so I now have to either order a housing unit or call up our company supplier ask them how the hell do they expect me to use the drive if I can’t connect it with the unit. Maybe I’ll just call Purchasing in the US and give them an earful. Battery life is very good, close to 4-hours of standard use. However, the performance of the battery tends to “weaken”a bit i.e. less than four hours when I run multiple apps for work while playing music while I’m working but this is pretty common for a lot of laptops.

The D430 comes with two pointing devices: a touch pad and a track-point..you know…that blue, pencil-eraser like thingy that sits between the G, H and B keys. Response time of the pointing devices was quite good although I really don’t like using the track-point. In fact, I hate it. The keyboard of the D430 is very responsive and very quiet – the way I like it. Having short fingers and small hands, the size of the keyboard and keys suits me just fine. It also has a very solid feel and the keyboard doesn’t…bounce – the keyboard on my wife’s iBook G4 sort of bounces.

The unit came pre-installed with Windows XP which allowed me to immediately install the software and applications that I need to do my work. Without installed security applications (anti-virus, firewall, spyware), productivity tools (email, MS Office applications) and imaging tools (Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom) the D430 was a fast machine. However, I noticed that the more applications I install, the system seems to slow down but I think it has to do Windows rather than the hardware itself.

Like all light to ultra light notebooks, heat management on the D430 is an issue. Although the palm rests don’t heat up, I sometimes get a jolt whenever the fans blow hot air out of the vents – and I can hear the fans blowing out air at the vents. Incidentally, the vent is placed at the right side of the unit – just in front of where you’d normally rest your palm if you’re using a mouse. Yes, I do use a mouse. However, it’s not as bad as my Blue Cobalt laptop wherein the palm rest gets really hot like a skillet after just 30 minutes of use. Hey, maybe I get a piece of one of them small marshmallows and try to roast it using the vent? Nah……

Unlike the old HP laptop that this unit replaced, the12″  LCD on the D430 (1280 x 800 max) gives me a display that’s crisp and clear. Text is very readable. However, the unit does not use Crystalbrite technology so it is not sharp as my Blue Cobalt’s TFT screen. The graphics adapter (Intel Mobile 945GM) produces good colors and color accuracy is quite good. However, I think I’ll avoid image post processing using this machine as I’m finding it difficult to get the colors and results I like. Also, gaming is out as the graphics adapter will not render 3D gaming images smoothly – when I ran Need for Speed – Hot Pursuit, the smoke trails were not smooth and looked like black and gray ice cubes.

There are three USB ports at the back, a Firewire port and a VGA port. One of the USB ports doubles as the “slot” where I would connect the external DVD-R/W drive. If I ever get the external housing, that is. However, I noticed that when I attach my external harddrive, sometimes Windwes does not detect it automatically. I dunno if its the USB port that has a problem or Windows but when I disconnect then reconnect my external HDD, that’s when Windows “sees” it. In the LCD panel, there’s a small squarish sensor. I initially thought that it is an on-board webcam but I found out that it is an “ambient sensor”. What it does is measure the intensity of light in a room and automatically adjust the LCD’s brightness. Does it work? I’ve no idea as – light or dim – the LCD intensity/brightness is always the same. I think I need to read-up more on this feature.

The unit came with a biometric sensor. I told myself “Nice! I won’t have to remember passwords anymore.” However, I found out that using it is an option i.e. the driver is installed and all that but I’d have to purchase a separate software from Dell to make it work. I know, it doesn’t sound right but that’s what our purchasing guy told me. UPDATE: 03-Oct-08: I tried installing several biometric software and somehow I still can’t get this feature to work. I checked with our vendor in the US, and the rep told me that the biometric feature is indeed an optional feature and that I need to purchase software to make it work. In other words, this feature is useless right out of the box. If biometrics is not a big deal for you, just ignore the feature.

This computer is definitely not heavy multi-media or gaming use. Aside from a so-so graphics card, the speaker on this thing is so tiny that my normal voice is louder than the loudest volume setting. Listening to music using the built-in speaker is a drag since it’s monaural. Good thing I have my trusty Senns with me. Also, it is a bit of a chore pushing in either the earphone jack or the mic jack inside their respective slots – I had to exert a little bit of effort in pushing them in. Getting them out, though, is easy.

All in all, this unit is a good rig for the road warrior. Good performer, light and thin. So if you guys are in the market for a good, portable laptop, give the D430 a look. You might not be disappointed with what you find and experience.

Cheers!