We spent a few minutes with the brand new
Dell Latitude XT and we have to say, as far as tablets (and especially Dells) go, this thing is top-tier. Some thoughts:
- 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.
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