Dell Latitude D800 review

Specs
15.4" WUXGA widescreen
nVidia GeForce4 4200 Go w/ 32MB RAM
20GB hard drive
1.X GHz Centrino CPU

Overall Build Quality
The plastic casing feels quite sturdy around the keyboard, and the alloy backing on the LCD is solid. If I press down on the casing around the keyboard/touchpad area, it will flex slightly, but it is not something to be concerned over. When I pick it up using both hands on the front of the laptop, I will hear some slight creaking, but nothing major. The LCD screen has virtually no wobble at all - and I am picky about this particular aspect of a notebook. It only wobbles when it is about 2 or 3 inches from being closed, which really isn't important anyway. The battery on the bottom appears to be slightly loose.

Screen
Good screen - bright, clear, crisp, and big - 15.4" widescreen. This model has a 15.4" WUXGA widescreen - TONS of real-estate! Personally, it's a little too much for me, but then again, I have inch-thick glasses . Right now I'm using WXGA. Obviously, because it's not the native resolution, it's not as crisp at it is at WUXGA, but for a non-native resolution, it's surprisingly good and not very fuzzy at all!

Pointing Devices
The D800 comes with a TrackPoint and a Touchpad. I personally prefer the trackpoint over a touchpad...which, by the way, is completely at par with any IBM TrackPoint - very good! The TouchPad is also good, and it responds equally to both a light and a heavy hand. Of course, there are no drivers installed for either devices, so they are just running off the base Windows pointing device drivers. The mouse buttons for the TouchPad are good as all they need is a light tap to respond with an assuring 'click'. The buttons for the TrackPoint, however, are another story: while they initially seem to feel like the IBM TrackPoint buttons, their response is not very good at all - these buttons require a good, hard tap in order to receive any response from them, and there is little or no click.

Heat & Noise
A very quiet notebook, as any Centrino laptop will be when web surfing, etc. It was noticably warm on the bottom, but not enough so to burn one's skin. Sorry, I can't tell what it would be like at full speed while gaming or heavy processing.

Be aware that this notebook belongs to a hospital waiting room where there are a lot of children - so I don't doubt for a second that this could factor into the quality of the notebook.

Would I buy this notebook? Maybe if I got a really good deal on it. Personally, I'm thinking about opting for an Asus M6Ne instead.