Dell Latitude D610 14.1" 2 GHz Laptop PC

For those of you thinking of buying a used laptop, I would recommend the dell C840. This piece of kit is robust and functional, (CHEAP). I have been around computer hardware for some time now, so I have some knowledge on the subject. recently I acquired a dell D610; I brought it because I thought it was a stage up from the C840. Was I wrong! Although the D610 is slimmer it does not have a good video graphics card as the C840. The screen resolution on the D610 is 1024 x 768 and low of 800 x 600 using the Intel 915/GMS, 910GL. express chipset. The highest amount of memory is 2GB PC4200 533Mhz... suprisingly there is not a lot of processors to upgrade the D610, You may find a 2.0Ghz. The D610 uses the Micro-FCPGA processor format; Be careful they look a lot like a regular 478 in size and colour, most seller do not list them correctly or use a 478 image as the Micro-FCPGA display processor, ask questions run the processors ID number in your browser to gain the correct information. In truth most sellers do not have a clue about PC hardware and will list their items incorrectly. the Dell D610 will load windows 7 nicely and also features 4x USB ports as well as an array of other input interfaces, only one PCMCIA slot. The C840 although only suppose to support up to 1GB memory can support 2GB memory. This is because I have upgraded the bios to the highest A13 build. From the dell website, just type in dell support in your browser and follow the on screen spit. The C840 as a better screen resolution and looks 100%, it can support 2x optical drives or DvD-Rom drives, if you remove the floppy drive, this bay can also house an additional battery so you can have a DVD combo drive this will be the prime drive located at the left side of the unit. The right side front bay houses the prime battery the floppy drive bay, second battery or another DvD drive... although it does not have USB 2.0. You can buy a USB 2.0 PCMCIA low profile card bus and slot it into one of the PCMCIA interface slot. These adaptors do not require a spare Usb port to run them as some do... the c840 can also support IDE hard drives over 80gb but must be IDE, ATA not SATA.. Widows XP runs well on this system you can also load windows 7, just will have to run the windows 7 compatibility programme; this will reconfigure your XP or vVista drivers to run on Win7, vista I would avoid. The C840 I use, Runs with a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 478 pin. There are lots of spares for this item and it’s very easily put together also great for builders; all parts are solid and easily accessible and removed shares parts with other dell laptops, C800, C810, 8100, 8200, CpX, 4150, M450, the dell c600 series battery will fit but I would not recommend tis, as the power ratings are different you may cause damage to your power board or kill the battery you will know this when the orange light flash’s on your lappy; The D610 also seem to fail more, and parts are expensive shares some parts with D600 and others, the D620 and D630 are different systems will share a few parts but they use the core 2 and core duo processors as the d610 PENTIUM-M OR CENTRINO. Both can use a docking station for the complete portable or home office use. WARNING! If upgrading to windows 7, you will find you will not be able to load the drivers for your laptop as they will not work there are some that will. The internal wifi. Usb, Video card. The sound audio drivers will not workdirectly. I believe they are working on this.

I bought this Dell D610 because all the new oned seem to be in wide screen format which makes normal web browsing more difficult. It also has an S Video output which is ideal for viewing on your TV. I purchased an inexpensive cable and a wireless keyboard/mouse and now have effortless armchair web browsing on my TV. The D610 is very fast with 1gb memory. Now all the latest ones have dual core this and that and several gb memory but all I can say is that this one is just as fast or faster than a friend's brand new acer with all the bells and whistles. The Latitude was a high end business product and it shows. It came loaded with Windows XP professional. I am very pleased with it in every way not least it was an absolute bargain on Ebay.

The first thing that struck me about the D610 is the level of build quality and materials used. With a combination of magnesium and aluminium used throughout the design it not only has a quality feel about it, but it's durable and lightweight. In terms of feature, the design is very flexible, having almost every feature you could wish for and the added flexibility of the Dell 'D-bay' media bay allowing a host of accessories to be fitted to the laptop ranging from DVD-RW drives, additional hard drives or even secondary batteries - there's a solution for most needs. The base spec of a standard D610 is more than enough to tackle day to day tasks with ease. It's a laptop that will satisfy all but the most power hungry gamers. With it being one of the most popular choices as a businesse laptop there are lots of reasonably priced accessories available in the market place, both used and brand new. And should it go wrong (this can happen to any laptop, especially with human intervention: dropping; coffe spills etc) the parts are cheap, freely available and can be replaced by anybody with a screwdriver and a copy of the service manual (which is full of pictures and a free downloaded from the Dell webiste). I recently replaced the motherboard on a 'dropped' machine in less than 20 minutes, and I'm no computer expert. Being Dell there is always good support from the Dell website, and should you need it the Dell help desk is just a phone call away. It's difficult to fault this laptop as it does the job it was designed to do very well. I have just one niggling annoyance which is that there is no internal microphone but, I can forgive it this since it does everything else so well.

1: High resolution screens in correct aspect ratio for computing.
2: Well built all round, as well as repairable.
3: Superb keyboard, and swappable drive bays as well as second battery option.
4: Quiet, yet very responsive - even under Windows 7.
5: Prices: ex-corporate stock available for tiny fraction of original cost, and often still in superb condition.

Why buy a budget laptop which will perform badly when you can get a used D610 for at least a third of the price? Seriously, these machines leave budget machines in the shade.
Ex-corporate workhorses every time!
Also consider IBM Lenovo.

I bought this laptop from one of the more popular laptop dealers on ebay after reading much reviews about it and have promptly resold it out of disapointment.I have used the HP Compaq laptops with 12 and 14 inch screens and i can easily say the d610 is overhyped and a very old model. I was greatly disapointed at the design and build quality which looked very old fashioned and a bit plasticky compared to the HP models.
if you looking for a decent laptop to buy that can easily compare with the new designs and models with more features than the d610 i would say dont hesitate to go for the compaq systems