Dell offers Latitude to corporate road warriors

From...

By Dan Neel

(IDG) -- Built-to-order PC maker Dell Computer on Wednesday began offering a new Latitude C610 notebook PC designed to free mobile workers from both data and power lines for up to eight hours, according to Tim Mattox, vice president of relationship client marketing for Dell.

The wireless-ready, dual-battery Latitude C610 is the latest addition to Dell's corporate line of notebook PCs. Built with a feature set that targets the system as a desktop PC replacement, the C610 weighs in at just under 6 pounds, making it easier for corporate "road warriors" and users in wireless office environments to carry.

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As a built-to-order company, Dell is capable of offering a wide range of configurations for the C610, including the choice of seven optical or storage devices such as CD-ROM, DVD, or additional hard drives.

Modular bays in the C610 allow customers to forgo added spindles for an extra battery, which gives users up to eight hours of battery-powered operation, according to Dell.

The C610 has Intel's 1GHz Pentium III-M processor, 128MB of SDRAM (synchronous DRAM), a 14.1-inch XGA display, an ATI Mobility Radeon video graphics chip set, a 10GB hard drive, and the option of integrated TrueMobile 802.11 wireless connectivity, 3Com 10/100 networking, or 56K v.90 dial-up.

Base pricing starts at $2,208.

Dell owns 25 percent of the worldwide market for notebook computers and enjoys a 55-percent share of the corporate PC and notebook market, according to statistics from U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, in Menlo Park, California.