Review: Dell Latitude C810

A notebook with solid credentials as a graphics machine

From...

By Carla Thornton

(IDG) -- What's hot: Dell's new Latitude C810 is a renovation of last summer's Latitude C800, providing the latest Intel processors, a higher maximum screen resolution of 1600 by 1200, and true SpeedStep capability.

With the C800, you had to set power parameters in the BIOS; the C810 automatically throttles to a slower speed when on battery power.

Otherwise, this desktop replacement boasts the same hot features as the C800 did, including dual pointing devices and a dual optical drive design. A fixed optical drive (a combination DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive in our test machine) sits on the left, and a modular floppy drive bay is on the front. For this bay you can buy a second optical drive, a second hard drive (as large as 20GB), a second battery, or a 250MB Zip drive.

IDG.net INFOCENTER

Related IDG.net Stories

Features

Visit an IDG site

IDG.net search

What's not hot

With a 2-inch-thick case and weighing 9.1 pounds (including AC adapter and phone cord), the C810 is chunky. Even with a hollow travel module filling the modular bay, the notebook weighs 7.4 pounds.

We continue to find the eraser head's mouse buttons -- a small set located above the touchpad -- tough on the fingertips because of their concave design. A more annoying limitation is that the C810 is unavailable with both standard and wireless networking connections built in: If you want a combination modem/ethernet connection and a wireless radio, you'll have to add one or the other via a PC Card. (Ours came with built-in modem and ethernet.)

What else

Multimedia editors may find use for the extra audio line-in, the C810's high-speed IEEE 1394 port, and the S-Video-out port, with which you can use the included adapter cable to add a composite video-out port or surround speakers. Sans peripherals, the C810 is less impressive; it has only so-so stereo speakers and no dedicated audio controls.

The C810's memory and storage are a snap to access, and Dell has quieted the keyboard in this upgrade, so typing is more pleasant. However, the keyboard is rather staid, with only one shortcut button for launching applications and no page-scrolling button.

Helped by its SpeedStep 1.13-GHz Pentium III-M processor, the Latitude C810 turned in a PC WorldBench 4 score of 101. We haven't tested any other models with the same processor and operating system, but the C810 received the best score of any notebook running Windows XP Professional that we've tested to date. Battery life was dead-on average, at 3 hours.

Upshot

Like its predecessor, the C810 is a large, black notebook with solid credentials as a graphics machine, especially now that Dell has bumped its screen resolution to the max.