Dell ultra-portables punch above their weight

Dell Latitude D410

Dell latitude D410

Dell laptops have a reputation for being chunky, cheap and reliable. It's good to see the Latitude D410 gets rid of the first attribute, though it has a good crack at eliminating the second as well.

It fits into the so-called "ultra-portable" category, a 1.7kg laptop that won't weigh you down on business trips and has built-in wireless networking so you can easily produce it in a hotspot-enabled cafe to get onto the internet.

While Dell and others are making their consumer-aimed laptops wider for DVD viewing, the reasonably bright 30.7cm screen of the D410 is in the regular 4:3 aspect ratio which will be familiar to business users. In fact, this Latitude is probably better named the Longitude, given its narrow, squarish look.

Its 1.86GHz processor is based on the second generation of Intel's Centrino architecture, which has given laptops a performance boost and improved battery life. There's built-in support for PCI Express, the newer, faster standard for expansion cards.

In the memory department, 1GB of RAM gives plenty of grunt. In fact, the D410 is fairly powerful for its size, though you may want to upgrade from the 40GB hard drive that comes as standard.

The drawback with the D410 is its lack of a built-in optical drive for DVD and CD viewing and burning.

A multi-functional docking station comes with the laptop and once connected offers optical drive, VGA and USB ports. But the docking station is fairly big and isn't something you'll want to take with you. If you need access to an optical drive on the move, you'll have to opt for a separate USB drive.

The D410 also has a rather cramped keyboard. As a long-time ultra-portable owner, I've become used to the confines of my lightweight Hewlett-Packard nc4000, but other laptop makers have come up with better keyboard layouts than the D410 using the same space.

When it gets down to work however, the D410 is impressive, running beautifully on Windows XP, handling graphic-intensive games such as Age of Empires 3 and video playback well.

Battery life can be extended with the purchase of a nine-cell battery.

* Pros: Powerful; sleek case; good connectivity options.
* Cons: Under-sized keyboard; no built-in optical drive.
* Price: $3713
* Herald Rating: 7/10


Dell X51V

The Dell X51V handheld computer has it all: a nice screen, Windows Mobile 5.0 software, and wireless networking.

But where's the phone?

Handheld computers of the Windows kind seem to have been subsumed by similar devices such as the Apache and I-mate, which offer the usefulness of a PDA and a mobile phone as well.

I haven't seen many standalone PDAs recently, as the market here seems slanted toward the combo devices. So why would you shell out $800 for a mini-computer when, on a two-year mobile plan, you can get a similar device and phone for the same price or less?

Most gadgets do one thing well, and the absence of phone functions gives the X51V more scope to focus on its multimedia functions.

It acts as a competent video player, mp3 player and photo viewer, with wi-fi built-in and an internet terminal.

It has a nice, high-resolution 9.3cm screen that does justice to text and video files.

Inside the X51V is a 624MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor. There's 6MB of memory devoted to video and 64MB of SDRAM. There's also a decent 256MB of ROM.

Those sorts of attributes mean the X51V will handle the updated Office Mobile suite of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and third-party Pocket PC applications smoothly.

There are slots for both SD and Compact Flash cards for bumping up memory storage, and Bluetooth for connecting to other devices. All that is packed into a device that weighs just 175g.

With the purchase of an optional Bluetooth keyboard, the X51V becomes a highly useful work and entertainment device that provides about four hours of battery life or more if you stay away from the media or wireless functions. It also synchronises well with the computer when placed in the supplied cradle.

The X51V is a solid addition to Dell's handheld range but will probably prove most useful to business users loading third-party software applications they need to have constant access to.

For the rest of us, there's the lure of the combo phones and even low-end laptops.

* Pros: Good memory allowance; wi-fi enabled.
* Cons: Expensive; short battery life with wireless.
* Price: $799
* Herald Rating: 7/10