Dell Latitude XT Laptop Review

The Latitude XT to put it simply just looks the part. Everything about it is generally very appealing. It has a very nice slate-grey outer casing, blue and silver highlights are used for buttons and key markings, there is also a blue power light to tell you if it’s turned on, it also comes with a battery charge icon.

The convertible Tablet Pc is most likely to be carried around in “screen outermost” mode most of the time, ready for pen input. Dell gives you a 12.1” screen which sounds quite small but in all honest is actually quite a decent size.

Tablet Pcs have to cater for a lot, not just handwriting recognition but also simple processes such as opening applications with a tap of the screen.

The Latitude is unique as it doesn’t use dual-mode stylus/finger technology but uses N-trig’s capacitive DuoSense technology. This means that instead of having to put a tonne of pressure onto the screen, it also has “palm-rejection” which determines if the input was intended or unintended. There are also fewer layers over the LCD which results in a clearer, sharper display.

The impressive screen section is framed by an array of buttons that make it a whole lot easy to use it in tablet mode. The buttons may need to pressed for quite a long time for them to take effect but does this help stop accidental activation.

The Dell weighs in at 1.61kg and measures in at 297mm by 25mm by 218mm and Dell claims that this makes it one of the thinnest Tablet PCs on the market. Yet this is only the matter if you buy the basic Dell Latitude, the optical drive is an option but it adds to bulk and weight.

The keyboard is rigid and it suits most tastes, it also gives a responsive “click” what makes touch-typing nice and easy.

The Dell is also packed with Intel’s 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo U7600 processor and also comes with 1GB of RAM which can be changed to a maximum of 3GB. Along with that the Dell comes with Windows Vista Business but you can also choose from Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows XP Tablet Pc Edition. The Dell also offers you a fingerprint sensor in the screen frame and a 40GB hard drive but this can also be pushed up to a maximum of 120GB. The Latitude also comes with an optical drive, if you want to you can add MediaBase. It also comes with Wi-Fi but not Bluetooth which is a bit of a downside. It also has a USB 2.0 port, a 4-pin FireWire port, an ExpressCard slot, an SD card reader, a pair of audio jacks, VGA out, Ethernet, a third USB 2.0 port and finally an external optical drive. Due to it’s 1.2GHz processor the Dell isn’t the best in words of performance but fortunately comes with a three-year basic warranty.

Overall the Dell Latitude XT is an extremely handsome Tablet PC and is also very usable, thanks to its screen and keyboard. It does come packed with al of the basics but it unfortunately doesn’t come with much more, especially for the business use.

Due to all of this Laptops.co.uk give the Dell Latitude XT 4 out of 5 stars.

Dell Latitude XT Laptop

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