Dell Latitude XT tablet hands-on
By Ryan Block 
posted December 11th 2007 12:02AM
posted December 11th 2007 12:02AM
- The whole machine's decked in a ThinkPad-esque soft touch finish, and has the same rugged feeling, with magnesium and a seemingly higher quality build than you're normally likely to find in most other Dells.
- The capacitive touchscreen worked really well, was nearly flush with the bezel, and, not surprisingly, instantly made us never want to go back to resistive touchscreen tablets.
- The hinge is unidirectional and feels really sturdy.
- It only has one speaker, so don't expect stereo audio out of the thing. The wireless on/off switch is much appreciated though, as is the SD slot.
- The extended battery "slice" / platform add-on doubles your running time, although we're not entirely sure how it hurts heat since it covers the fan intake.
- A base price $2500 is too much. We're sorry, we know this machine is pretty rad, but it's true. For a grand less you can snag an X61 with more power, and, we'd wager, more of that ThinkPad ruggedness. Ordinary consumers -- even many businesses -- will not pay that kind of a premium for this machine.
Where have the coupons your talking about been made available? How do you get them when they are?
There's usually a few places to find them. People will often post them at places like slickdeals, etc. You can usually always find current Dell coupons at notebookreview.com (one of the tabs is actually specifically dedicated to Dell Coupons).
Usually if you sign up with Dell you'll often get special coupons as well.
I wanna know why the biometric fingerprint reader is placed sideways, and on the screen bezel. It looks as though it would be a pain to use whether in laptop mode or slate mode. Not that it's a deal-breaker, but it looks like bad design.
Act like your sitting down and the tablet is sitting directly in front of you in laptop mode. Extend your right arm forward to the right of the screen and stick your thumb out to the left. That's it.
Also, IF the tablet is in slate mode (already folded back and closed) then the biometric reader isn't covered.
Still bad design? It's the way EVERYONE has gone with it now (Asus R1E, Toshiba M700, IBM Thinkpad X61).
I'd gladly pay at least $2500 for a convertible laptop *if* the following requirements were met:
2ghz C2D
14.1" capacitive touch screen (emphasis on touch-capable) (A 15.1" option would be nice, for however much more that would cost).
nForce Go 7800GTX (I'd pay more for better graphics too).
oh, and the 14.1/15.1" touch screen would need a resolution of 1440x900. Since it would use capacitive touch, this should not be a technical problem (resolution used to be a problem with resistive tech).
Yeah my bad there are no 2ghz ULV C2Ds.
Fine.
I'll settle for a 1.2ghz ULV C2D then :)
I'd still want the 14 or 15" capacitive touch screen
And I'd be able to give up the dedicated video if the price was right (around $2000).
I mean, if the battery life is going to suck, why does the Precision line exist?
The problem is no longer the hardware. Its making a light battery that can hold the kWhrs required to power your mini super computer. Ok thats just an exaggeration, but its basically true. Battery technology is holding back the niche market of small, light, super fast laptops. Its hard to make them rocket and not require a portable generator you know. Btw, if you're looking for a 7800 or even comparable Gfx card, look at 7+ lbs range for your laptop. Even then, its going to get dismal battery life.
The price is insane. I was preparing to pay maybe $1500. Looks like i'll have to wait for the 40% off coupons. touchpad, touchscreen, active digitizer, and even touchknob input all in one tablet is pretty amazing. Its also a lot thiner/light than anything out there. WIth an ATI chipset though, i don't know how real battery life will be. Maybe i'll try one for 2 weeks. Looks like it will be orderable any hour now. I've been refreshing a lot and just found a direct link playing with the address.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/latit_xt?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&~tab=bundlestab
So Dell is claiming that it costs $1,000 for multi-touch. Check out this YouTube video. Only $30 bucks for a Wii remote and +/- $20 for a bluetooth adapter if you don't have it already and you have 4 point multi-touch.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ
Look under Dell latiude on the site & then select all LATITUDE MODELS - base price looks more than $2500.00
http://www.dell.com/content/products/results.aspx/latit?~ck=anav&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Magnesium, wow! that'll look super cool when the battery catches it on fire.
Hahahaha...That's funny AND true
I'm sure the reason why people ranked you down is cause we have a bunch of 10 year olds on here or just a bunch of high school drop outs who don't have a basic understanding of Chemistry.
chemistry++
vote the guy back up, people.
Gateway C120. Does most of the same stuff at less than half the price.
Still not a touchscreen laptop. I already commented to someone else about the C140X too. Apples to Oranges...
C120-X -- touchscreen. I had to turn it off because I didn't really like it. You can use wacom or your fingers to select things on the screen!!
"Besides having the Wacom digitizer, the C120X also offers a touchscreen. Now users have the best of both worlds -- the option of either using a finger or the pen as an input method. Considering the C120X uses Wacom technology the pen strokes are a more accurate method of input, specifically suited to handwriting or drawing, and I know hard-core Tablet users will love this. That was one of the problems with HP's tx1000, it had a touchscreen, but no active pen input (which granted, did keep the price of the tx1000z down). Gateway did a great job of outfitting the C120X with both though. Being able to use the pen, in my opinion is the main point of a Tablet, and it's handy to have the touchscreen for those times you want to poke the screen to move windows around or quickly open a menu."
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3676
So far it has been a pleasure. Very solid, very functional--well worth the $1100 it was on sale for.
FYI Gateway is canceling the C-120
I was hoping Dell was going to introduce some price competition to tablet PC's. I can't ding them for making what appears to be a good product, but $2500 is out of my range for a laptop that's secondary to my desktop.
It was pretty funny to see this contraption touted as the "world's first touch screen lap top" on NBC 11 last night.
Ill keep my gateway cx210 tablet that I bought in march. Works great for drawing in photoshop, artrange, and still has enough power to run maya, and other 3d apps that i eed to use, and it only cost me $1,7000