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Dell Latitude D430 User Review

by Greg Ross

The Dell Latitude D430 is Dell’s current ultraportable offering that features the Ultra Low Voltage

(ULV) Core Solo, ULV Core Duo, ULV Core 2 Duo, and a host of other technologies in order to

create one of the smallest 12.1" machines that still maintains a respectable amount of battery life

and computing power. With so many questions and details to cover about ultraportable notebooks, continue

reading this full review!

Reasons for Buying

bout two months after trading my 15.4" HP nc8430 for a 17" HP 8710p under a warranty replacement (see

my user notes for reviews on both notebooks), some of my college work load required constant access to

my personal PC. After several weeks of carrying around my 17" notebook with all my books and notes, I was

more than ready to consider getting a smaller notebook.

The 8710p is still one of the lightest 17" notebooks out there, but I needed something drastically lighter to

travel inside of my well-stuffed bookbag.

fter looking into the lowe

cost solutions available, I finally decided that if I wanted a really small, really

portable computer with my budget I was going to have to get a gently used one. I had my eye on a lower

end D430 from the Outlet, and once I nabbed a 15% off coupon from eBay (with purchase of an upgrade to

the three year gold support warranty) I was ready. In to the Dell Outlet, and out with the D430.

Price & Model Specifications

The D430 starts out at a not-so-light $1,199…which is actually an amazing price to me given ultraportables

usually carry a premium price for their slim designs. From the Dell Outlet, the D430 is regularly available for

around $1000 and may include some upgraded hardware.

My specific unit was configured as follows:

Intel Core Solo U1400 Processor (Santa Rosa, 1.2GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, Ultra Low Voltage)•

Microsoft Genuine Windows XP Professional•

12.1" WXGA Display (1280 x 800)•

1GB DDR2 533MHz RAM (upgraded to 2GB aftermarket)•

80GB 4200RPM Toshiba 1.8" HDD•

External D-Port CD-RW/DVD-ROM Optical Drive•

802.11a/b/g WiFi, Ethernet, and Modem•

6-Cell 42Whr Battery•

3-Year Next Business Day At-Home & Gold Technical Support Warranty•

Dimensions: 11.6" W x 8.25" D x 1" H•

e 1 of 15Dell Latitude D430 User Review

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Summary of content (15 pages)

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Dell Latitude D430 User Review notebookreview.com Page 1 of 15 http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/dell-latitude-d430-user-review/ Dell Latitude D430 User Review by Greg Ross The Dell Latitude D430 is Dell’s current ultraportable offering that features the Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Core Solo, ULV Core Duo, ULV Core 2 Duo, and a host of other technologies in order to create one of the smallest 12.1" machines that still maintains a respectable amount of battery life and computing power.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 2 of 15 • Weight: 3.2lbs (with battery, without optical drive) Brand new, and without my extra warranty upgrade, this configuration of the D430 would cost $1,640 before taxes. With my warranty upgrade, the system would cost about $1,800-$1,900 brand new. Additionally, the single-core D430 is only available in the Large Business section at www.dell.com. The Small Business section (where consumers can purchase from too!), only the dual core variant is available.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 3 of 15 encountered. The bezel has one small weak spot at the inside vertical edges, and when pushing in on the LCD screen from up top I can produce some ripples on the screen. Is either a lot? Would it possibly be enough to damage the screen? No on both counts, but as with any notebook do not act out any of your dreams of dropping bricks directly onto the notebook. When in my backpack or another tight spot, I have not needed to worry about the screen protection.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review (view large image) Page 4 of 15 (view large image) The exterior of the D430 (aka the back of the LCD screen and the bottom of the notebook) appears to be almost 100 percent gun-metal gray, which is a design feature that we’ve seen in Latitudes for a long time. It’s getting kind of old, but it still looks nice. But an update would be nicer. The interior of the D430 is really what looks nice and professional.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 5 of 15 The D430 features a standard 12" WXGA screen with a total resolution of 1280×800 pixels. Widescreen has pretty much become the standard for all notebooks, and I do have to say that it is nice to have this much horizontal real-estate. The screen resolution itself is just right for a 12" notebook display, as for me all text and graphics easily readable.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 6 of 15 Darkest settings (view large image) Brightest settings (view large image) The HP 8710p up against the D430 in a screen contest. Darkest to the left, brightest to the right. Finally, the screen does have a built-in ambient light sensor that can automatically adjust the brightness of the screen. When using that feature, I have found that the sensor does accurately determine how bright the screen should be for me to work effectively.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 7 of 15 fails utterly. Every time I listen to a music track or movie the sound has no depth and it feels and sounds like something is missing. To try and get around this, I tried using the headphone jack on the D430 with a pair of Creative earphones that are known to work well enough to my satisfaction on other machines. Even then, the D430′s sound system disappointed so I know it is not just the lack of decent speakers.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 8 of 15 (view large image) SuperPI and wPrime are programs that are useful in testing the computational abilities of processors, but wPrime is not as useful for single core processors. (view large image) (view large image) SuperPI, which forces the processor to calculate the first 2M digits of PI, clocks in with a final time of 1m 57s. wPrime, which finds a ton of prime numbers, comes in with a total time of 148.344s.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 9 of 15 (view large image) As shown, the transfer rate of the D430′s 4200RPM drive is rather low, but this is to be expected for a smaller and slower drive. SSD drives are available for the D430 and would eliminate this bottleneck. Another thing to mention is that the HDD is a PATA/IDE drive, which means you’ll need to pay attention to make sure you get a compatible drive if you ever upgrade anything. Lastly, the D430 comes equipped with the Intel GMA 950 IGP.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 10 of 15 machine? Yeah, you heard me right…and during idle the processor most of the time stays at 0% usage with occasional spikes to up to 10% utilization. On a daily basis I am using Microsoft Office, several FTP and SSH applications, an Xserver program (which is a Linux/Sun equivalent version of Windows Remote Desktop Connection) that is known to be a processor hog, WMP10, and a few other little applications.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 11 of 15 (view large image) Most of the time, the processor’s fan on the D430 does not need to run at all (or only at a very slow speed) to maintain the 50-60C temperatures. That means that during general usage the laptop is virtually silent, and you’ll only be hearing occasional hard drive clicking sounds. During class lectures or business meetings, this laptop will be dead-silent most of the time.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 12 of 15 Running my fingers over the touchpad feels fine, and the mousepad is fairly responsive so movements are smooth. At first I had to adjust a little bit to the touch and operation of this trackpad, since I was moving from the HP laptops to the D430, but in the end I have found the trackpad to be very responsive and useful.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 13 of 15 Back (view large image) From left to right: Ethernet, modem, 2x USB, VGA-out, 1x USB (also used for DVD drive connection), IEEE 1394 Firewire 400 port, and the AC power jack. The Intel 3945 802.11a/b/g WiFi card works perfectly fine. I have no issues connecting to the networks I frequent, no disconnections, and few problems at all.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 14 of 15 One concern I am sure users will have is the power button on the side of the notebook. It could potentially be easy to hit when the laptop is in a backpack or luggage or briefcase. Everyone knows that an active laptop is such a small space could cause heat related failures, and Dell was aware of this as well. Fortunately, Dell programmed the BIOS of the laptop to NOT turn on if the laptop is closed.
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Dell Latitude D430 User Review Page 15 of 15 dual-core options available. Sure, the laptop admittedly has flaws like the horrid speaker and the slightlybelow-average screen, but the D430 has too many good things going for it to turn it away as a potential system. But notebooks in this category are largely evaluated on portability, longevity, and build quality. The Dell Latitude D430 definitely managed to excel in all three categories.