Mid-sized Dothan Notebook Roundup: Dell, Gateway, and HP/Compaq

Dell Latitude D600: In the Field

Fan

The unit's CPU fan is on only when it needs to be, as it is initiated at a particular thermal point. So, as CPU usage goes up, the fan will in turn be activated or fan speed will be increased. There does seem to be variable degrees in the fan speed, but even with the fan at maximum speed, it is only seems to be on for a few seconds. At that max speed, the noise is very distinguishable. At mid-speed, you would actually need to be in a room that is quiet enough to hear the second hand of a clock in order to make out the low pitched hum of the CPU fan. In a reasonably quiet room, where you could hear a pin drop, you need to be within about 5" of the laptop to distinctly make out the fan; and probably within 2" of the left side of the laptop to make out the fan's buzz sound. Actually, if the optical drive is being accessed, the fan's noise will be drowned out.

Heat

In our opinion, there doesn't seem to be an issue with heat for these notebooks. In field use, the top of the system stays pretty cool to the touch; but on the bottom, only the left side of the system (where the CPU is located) gets warm. Though, it only gets hot enough to serve as a lap/hand warmer. It is definitely tolerable.

Keyboard

Click to enlarge.

Compared to the other two systems in this roundup, we would have to say that this is the middle child, in terms of keyboard quality, but it is still better than what we usually see. Compared to the Inspiron line, it has better feedback, but it seems to have a shorter "click", which is the best way we can describe it.

The control key and function key are located in the correct spot: control key at the bottom left corner with the function key to the right of it. We were pleased to see that Dell continued to provide dedicated page up, page down, home and end keys, but it may be hard for those with small hands to reach while centering on the arrow keys.

TouchPad & Buttons

We can't distinctly put our finger on whether or not we like this touchpad. Generally speaking, the touchpads on business notebooks are different than their consumer counterparts, just like the keyboard selection. This is because business users tend to expect a higher quality keyboard/touchpad in their laptop systems, a premium that they expect to pay over consumer notebooks.

However, it has been a while since we had a Dell Latitude in the labs.

Click to enlarge.

The D600's touchpad, compared to those on most other notebooks, is quite sensitive. It has a better glide aspect, in our opinion. Perhaps this is due to the fact that most other notebooks have touchpads with lower degrees of sensitivity. This is going to be one of those "like it or love it" features. You can still tweak the sensitivity of the touchpad, but there is a general sense of this touchpad, particularly its texture, that is different than others which we have used. So, it is a bit of both hardware and software related.

The buttons for the touchpad have a particular click to them that is similar to that of our Logitech M-BJ69 USB optical mouse, though it is a lengthier click. This is different from most other notebooks (including the other two in this roundup), in which the norm has been for touchpad buttons to have a shallower or less "clicky" feel. When using the buttons on the D600, you can clearly hear the click of the buttons. You don't really get that with other notebooks.

We should note that this is a dual input system, as Dell implements a touchpad and TrackPoint. Our personal preference is to use TrackPoint and its buttons over the touchpad system for the D600.