If you're interested in getting into the semi-ruggedized laptop game, but aren't quite ready to sacrifice those Dell, um,
good looks, then you might dig this new ATG D620 Latitude from your boringbook manufacturer of choice, which claimed to be
considering going rugged late last year. The new laptop plays off of that
plain vanilla D620 we saw early last year, but beefs up the exterior, shock-mounts the hard drive, spill-resists the keyboard and covers up those ports to defend against the harsh outdoors and / or occasional board meeting skirmish. The 1280 x 800 14.1-inch display is the same as its non-rugged counterpart, with the notable exception of 500 nits of brightness, making the display much more viewable outdoors. The laptop also includes ATG task lights for finding the keyboard in the dark, and that lovable selection of WWAN options Dell is so fond of providing these days. No pre-loaded Vista here, but the laptop does come Vista ready, and with Core 2 Duo processors and room for 4GB of RAM, there should be plenty under the hood to manage the new OS. Prices start at $2499. The folks over at Notebook Review already got their hands on one of these, and they seemed to enjoy the 500 nit screen, thought the battery life to be good with the 9-cell option, and found the rugged feel to be "convincing." Downsides of the laptop include the lack of dedicated graphics, the 1.8-inch HDD (since the full-size drives don't fit with all that padding) and a few other more minor quibbles.
Read - Dell Launches its First Ruggedized Notebook
Read - Dell Latitude ATG D620 Semi-Rugged Notebook Review
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
sumobear @ Jan 16th 2007 4:43PM
Did Dell forget about this at CES? looks to me like something actually interesting could have been mentioned.
Tracy in Cary @ Jan 16th 2007 6:10PM
Anyone want to try some head-on collisions between their "rugged" Dell and my Panasonic Toughbook?
Didn't think so.
nonstatic @ Jan 17th 2007 10:55PM
wow, that thing is way overpriced. i will be getting a twinhead durabook instead.
nojok3 @ May 19th 2007 2:08AM
A new computer without Vista?
Tor Olav @ Dec 31st 2008 3:46AM
The laptop is cool. I purchase a new from dell. However, The battery of running time is too low. I bought new one from http://www.batterygoshop.co.uk/dell/latitude-d620-battery.htm . Does anyone have this problem?