Dell Latitude D400 review

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Verdict:

A great little ultra-portable that's let down by its poor battery life. It may be light and well-specified, but it's poor battery life really lets it down.

Review Date: 14 Feb 2007

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Sasha Muller

Our Rating 3 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

An ultra-portable laptop for £299?

You've got to be kidding right? Well somehow TRS has managed it with the Dell Latitude D400. Compared to the Panasonic CF-W5 ultra-portable we reviewed last issue, the Dell Dimension D400 might look fairly chunky, but it is a fifth of the price. The specification is startlingly good with an Intel Pentium M 1.6GHz serving processor duties and 512MB of memory alongside it. It's may be no speed demon, but a result of 66% in our benchmarks is still good enough for everyday tasks. As with many of its competitors the Dell's integrated graphics just aren't good enough for playing games.

Expecting a £299 laptop to play games is unrealistic at best though, and the Dimension D400's skills lie elsewhere. It's by far the lightest laptop on test weighing just 1.7kg, but its daintiness does have a downside. Other laptops here manage to fit their DVD drive into their case, but the D400 is so compact that Dell has had to resort to an external USB combo drive.

The 12.1in screen is free from any real nasties, but its native resolution of 1024 x 768 makes the Windows Desktop feel cramped, particularly when compared to the other widescreen laptops here.

For a small, easily portable laptop, the Dell's Achilles heel is its poor battery life. Our light use test saw the battery run flat after just 90 minutes and our DVD movie barely played for over an hour. The Dell Dimension D400's price is attravailable, but the Acer is a better all-rounder.

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