Specifications

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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.

However, once this laptop gets going with a processor intensive job it is going to complain audibly. You are

going to hear it, and so is everyone else a few feet away from you. It is fairly high pitched because the fan is

physically smaller, and you are going to notice it. But you are only going to notice it if you push the laptop

pretty hard, which is not going to happen during normal office usage.

Keyboard and Touchpad

There is no doubt in my mind that the D430′s keyboard is amongst the best I’ve ever typed on. It may even

be THE best I’ve ever used. There is a little more feedback in the key-presses than my 8710p or the nc8430,

and Dell even managed to fit in a full-size keyboard in the 12" frame. The keyboard feels extremely firm, and

there is no flex anywhere on the keyboard when using it.

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The keyboard also has a slightly different

layout than what I am used to, but I’ve learned

and adjusted. The biggest difference is that

the PageUp and PageDown buttons are

located above the arrow keys in the lower right

corner of the keyboard, but they are within

easy reach of the pinky finger and I prefer to

use them instead of scrolling now. The F1-F12

keys up top are a little too thin for my tastes

though, as are the Esc, Home, End, Insert,

and Delete keys that are found in the function

button row. Dell could probably have made

those 17 keys full size had their design

department thought a little more creatively.

The pointer stick is also pleasantly surprising, and I’ve found it to be very responsive to my touch.

Controlling the directional movement of the mouse is fairly fluid, and I’ve found it to be less clunky than the

sticks found on the HP Compaq notebooks.

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The dual mouse buttons are also quiet during operation, however the mousepad is not as nice as I would

have liked. I do miss the middle (third) mouse button featured on the HP Compaq machines. However, I did

recently discover that the Dell mouse drive interprets a left+right click as a middle click, so maybe I’ll adjust.

But I doubt it will ever be the same.

e 11 of 15Dell Latitude D430 User Review

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