For me, Dell computers have always sort of been the holy grail of nerd gear. They work great, and they don't cost you an arm and a leg. The Latitude CPi is certainly no exception.

On the exterior, the CPi looks like your usual boring black laptop. Black finish, ports on the back, bays on the front, card slots on the side. Once you fire it up, though, you realize it's got a bit more than your average slab of silicon.

First off, there's Dell's legendary reliability. I will admit that my CPi evolved a problem: The cooling fan stopped working. I got mine used, though, and fully expect that it was thoroughly abused by any number of it's previous owners. The point isn't that the fan quit- the point is the machine didn't care. The Latitude kept on trucking, though badly overheating, without a crimp in performance or reliability. In all the time I spent dropping, stepping on, and bashing the thing I never did manage to break it. Dell certainly knows how to build a computer.

In addition to stellar performance, the Latitude boasts all of the comforts of home in a rather smaller package. Dell machines have the best laptop keyboards I have ever used, and the CPi is no exception. The keys are quiet and responsive, spaced well, and have a good feel to them. The Fn key is also in a logical place, so you don't keep whacking it instead of control. Through Fn combos you can control the brightness, volume, and video stretch settings. The Fn key can do other tricks as well. Get this: You can enter the system BIOS utility while the machine is running, change some settings, and pick up right where you left off without missing a beat. I've never seen another computer pull something like that in my life. You can also pull up an instant (and accurate) power gauge whenever you want, without fumbling around in the control panel or system tray, and you can even do it from DOS. Groovy.

Unlike various attempts by Sony and Compaq, the CPi sports a full host of ports. You will find a PS2, serial, IR, parallel, USB, headphone, line out, and microphone jack on this machine. It also carries two PCMCIA slots, as you would expect it to. Even though the floppy and CDROM drives are hot swappable, Dell goes another step and lets you attach the floppy drive to the parallel port at any time, enabling you to use both drives at once.

Dell's claim of 4 hours of battery life isn't too far off base- this thing gets truly spectacular uptimes off of one charge, and you can refill your battery completely in less than an hour. The display is also excellent, with good clarity, color depth, and brightness.

Everything has a drawback, though. The CPi, like other Latitudes, is built like a tank. Thus, it's heavy. I have no problem keeping it in my backpack or in my lap, but professional road warriors might want something a little lighter (albeit something much more expensive). Also oddly enough, though you can plug in an external mouse to the PS2 port on the fly, doing so disables the built in touchpad until you reboot. Weird.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 700
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium II
Processor speed: 201-300
Screen Size: 14
RAM: 64
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20