Half The Weight/Half The Functionaltiy!
Written: Aug 10 '00 (Updated Aug 11 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Solid Feel; Ultra Portable
Cons: Lacks The Basic Necessities Of A Computer
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| bor's Full Review: Dell Latitude CS |
For about 2 months, this was the *only* laptop you could lease - as they had taken the current crop of CPi's out. I was unfortunate enough to ordered at the wrong time.
This is an ultra-thin laptop, with ultra-thin accomodations. No serial port, no IR, no CD bay, no extra battery compartment. If you were to get this laptop, you had better get the docking station (C/DockII) with it. In addition, the CPU fan is unusually noisy, as you will know all too well when it actually kicks on. It comes with only one side firing speaker, and is a bit weak. Lacking as well, is a line-in input, but supplies the mandatory headphone out, and microphone in. Also worth noting, is that the keyboard doesn't have enough of a buffer space from the LCD. The keyboard eventually rubs the LCD screen to the point where you'll notice a permanent smudge.
Operating this laptop is quite cumbersome. The CD drive is not hot-swappable, so you need to reboot if you forget to tether the drive. The battery life is barely acceptable, what with the power-hungry processor, and the fan kicking on five minutes after its booted up. The purpose of this laptop is to be ultra-light, and although having a magnesium case on the LCD is nice touch, it adds to the weight. At about 5lbs, with nothing attached, its doable. Add the essential CD or disk drive or both, power adapter, extra battery, a USB serial port, and you're back at square one - at regular laptop weight.
Aside from its hardware shortcomings, the laptop does run quite well, and the touchpad is very responsive. On the dock, although noisy with the fan, it operates acceptably.
I hate this thing, and am trying to get out of the lease, or at least pawn it off to a new employee. If you're looking for ultra-light, and don't have the need for a CD drive, or sync your handheld computer, then this bad boy is for you. Thats bad, meaning bad, not bad, meaning good.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 2,900
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 401-500
RAM: 128
Hard Drive (GB): 9-12
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Epinions.com ID:
bor
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Member: Bor
Location: San Francisco, CA
Reviews written: 30
Trusted by: 3 members
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