Dell joins the fray, offers SSD in Latitude D420, D620

Not a moment too soon, Dell has finally decided to bite and offer up solid state disc drives in a couple of its Latitudes. Joining Sony, Fujitsu, and Samsung (just to name a few), the Texas powerhouse has just announced that users can satisfy their SSD cravings by snapping up a D420 or D620 ATG laptop, both of which can contain a 1.8-inch 32GB SSD drive from SanDisk. According to the release, the drives should be available right now as an add-on option for the US market (Europe and Asia to "follow soon"), but opting for one of these suckas will cost you $549 more than a traditional HDD.

[Via Electronista]

[Josh @ Apr 24th 2007 3:21PM]

swwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

[Sam Cayze @ Apr 24th 2007 3:37PM]

Actually it will cost another $470.

$529 is the retail price.

[S @ Apr 24th 2007 3:49PM]

ummm.........did you go to the dell website and configure it? It actually costs MORE than they quoted........at $549 over the 30gb platter based drive. Makes me wonder how much dell is raping us, and how much they could ACTUALLY sell it for, to make it a viable drive option for those of us with the pockets of mortals.

[outoffocuz @ Apr 24th 2007 4:06PM]

Yep. They're available to add to your order now on dell.com for $550 green. That makes for a really expensive Dell Latitude. Doesn't that inflate the price to within striking distance of a much better SSD machine like the Sony G1?: http://www.dynamism.com/g1/pricing.shtml

[ChocoLatte @ Apr 24th 2007 4:07PM]

Dell's core business is enterprise customers... they don't care if a few shmoes can't afford SSD. They care if an IT department that supports a 1,000 member sales force may consider SSD a worthy expense. I doubt it, but hey, nobody will buy it if it isn't offered.

[outoffocuz @ Apr 24th 2007 4:09PM]

I like the idea of these SSDs as much as the next guy, but the tech is just not there yet. $550 extra for a 32GB drive? Isn't Vista alone close to a 15GB install? They got to get to a reasonably priced 64GB before I can jump in.

[Leonard Nimrod @ Apr 24th 2007 4:33PM]

I agree with outoffocouz.

The cost to value-added doesn't make it worthwhile for most users. I thought that we'd see this in Panasonic's Toughbook line as solid-state makes for a reliable drive, but Panasonic seems slow to upgrade its line.

Intel's Robson cache and other manufacture's S/P/ATA hybrid HDD/NAND drives make a great deal more sense as it speeds up most actions while adding a fairly insignificant overhead,

[vicalpha @ Apr 24th 2007 6:22PM]

There are more and more SSD laptop announced they days. Nearly all the big data space players have announced that the will produce SSD drives. The SSD space and performance will just go up and the price will go down. At the speed it goes these days, it might happen very fast.

[Crouching Tiger, Hidden Longhorn @ Apr 24th 2007 4:36PM]

That's almost as much as an iPhone?!?! And people say it's too expensive!!!

[SteveMB @ Apr 24th 2007 10:20PM]

Yea, but I think a hard drive and a phone are in two different categories, are they not?

[zzz @ Apr 25th 2007 4:16AM]

Paying 500 bucks for a 32GB drive is just silly.

[Mark @ Apr 25th 2007 2:28PM]

You're not paying $550 for a 32G drive, you're paying $550 for more than doubling your effective battery life. Heat output goes down to, while ruggedness and speed go up. For me though, the biggest thing is the huge improvement in how long I could use the laptop unplugged.

[Tyler @ Apr 26th 2007 12:59AM]

How come it says "offer up solid state disc drives?" shouldn't it just be solid state drive or solid state storage? There's nothing 'disc' about these things.

[jinishans @ Jun 29th 2007 1:51PM]

Hey Guys

Ive configured just now one D430 with SSD 32gb + another 80GB (def. we need as someone told, Vista itself takes 15-20gb), U1400, comes around 2500$, which is huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge amount. I feel, itll take another year or two for SSD's to come to be main bandwagon, when competition increases and avoiding additonal HDD and having SSD itself of 64GB+. Lets see.

Oh, one more issue. We dont know how Vista behaves in SSD's. Wait and watch.

Jinishans

[Anton Wahlman @ Jul 1st 2007 3:13PM]

One key problem with the Dell Latitude D430 is that you can't configure it with the 32 gig solid state storage module if you go to www.dell.com and sign in as "small business." If someone else tries it and it yields a better result, please let us know! Also, the price with tax comes to some $3,495 with a reasonable configuration. This compares to the D630, which is almost $500 less with a similarly reasonable configuration -- although that one has a more modern processor (2 GHz Santa Rosa).