
D505 D600 D610 D620 D630 D400 D410 D420 D430
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.
The Dell D Series of laptops are outstanding for everyday use and there are some real bargains to be had on Ebay now for these devices.
One important consideration to think of before purchasing these is screen size and aspect. The D400 series is a very small form factor laptop which is great when size and weight is an issue but the screen is small so extended use, particularly internet surfing, word processing etc is a little hard on the eyes. The D420 and 430 are widescreen too !
The D505 and 600 series are normal size screens - much better for higher resolution BUT you need to consider if you want a widescreen or standard 4:3 aspect screen before purchasing.
The D620 & D630 laptops are widescreen which is great for movies, multimedia etc but not as ideal for word processing or web browsing. Sure the widescreen is great across the page but consider it is not as tall as a normal 4:3 screen therefore you end up scrolling up and down a lot which is not ideal.
The D505, D600 and D610 laptops are standard 4:3 aspect XVGA screens and outstanding clarity - as these are slightly older models they can be picked up for a song on Ebay.
A couple of other pointers:
1. Battery Life on any laptop degrades over time and I regularly see Dell laptops listed without mention of the battery. A replacement battery can cost a lot on a Dell laptop so worth checking with the seller how long the laptop lasts on battery alone. A good way to save battery life is to turn down the brightness (use keyboard functions to do this). Reduced brightness can give a lot longer battery time.
2. Is the laptop provided with a power supply AND the power cable to the supply. These are propriatory Dell so are also not too cheap to replace.
3. Upgrading memory on a Dell is really easy and there are a lot of good brand compatibles out there. To upgrade the memory you simply open up a small panel with a single screw in the base of the laptop and the 2 memory slots are exposed. If you want a cheap upgrade to one of these laptops, open this panel, read the description on the memory's sticker (such as PC2700 CKL2.5.... etc and search for larger size modules on Ebay). I just bought 2 x 512mb Genuine Dell for £12 !
4. The D505 and D600 series laptops come with a modular bay for the CD & floppy drive and are interchangeable between these models. Some are shipped with a CD reader and others with a CDRW or DVDRW drive so look at this carefully - if it has a writer included its worth a bit more !
For software licence, Dell put their COA stickers onto the laptop and as long as you have any Dell restore CD then you can put the O/S back on very easily. For XP there is no need to enter the COA key during installation and it is pre activated so no need to contact Microsoft. For the newer Vista machines though it is all pre-configured the same but you do need to activate it with Microsoft. Beware though the restore CD's do check its a Dell machine chipset so don't work on other brands of laptops or desktops.
Finally another great feature of the Dell D Series laptops is the D series docking station. These too can be picked up on Ebay for a good price and provide all the usual external connectors for screen, keyboard, mouse, audio, USB etc. Your laptop simply slots onto this and XP/Vista will detect it as docked. The screen, keyboard and mouse can be plugged in therefore turning your laptop into a desktop machine very easily !
Hope this helps.
Review ID: 10000000007402344

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