Dell Latitude C840 review

Dell's Latitude ppx is a high-performance laptop aimed at mobile professionals. With a powerful graphics subsystem, 15in TFT display and an Intel 2GHz Mobile Pentium 4-M processor, the ppx is well suited for use as a desktop replacement system.

But firms with mobile workers who need to use very demanding applications, such as computer-aided design packages, should also consider Dell's Precision mobile workstations, which feature the more capable Nvidia Quadro4 graphic subsystem. In tests, we found that the Latitude ppx only just beat a Precision M40 mobile workstation powered by a 1.2GHz Pentium III for some benchmarks. The ppx's Business Winstone 2001 score of 46.7 is very respectable, but not very far ahead of the Precision M40's 46.4.

Our review unit had 512MB of PC266 DDR memory, expandable up to 1GB; and an Nvidia GeForce4 Go graphics chip with 64MB of memory. Storage consisted of a 40GB hard drive and a combined DVD/CD-RW drive in the Latitude's fixed optical bay. A media bay holds the floppy drive and can accommodate optional devices such as a second battery or Zip drive.

Dell's TrueMobile 802.11b wireless LAN system is integrated as standard. We could easily establish a server link on our IT Week Labs WLAN, and were able to map drives and share files easily, recording a data transfer rate of 4.6Mbit/s when using a wireless access point. However, we found that Windows XP disables Dell's Client Manager, and it takes some time to access wireless parameters under the Windows Control Panel.

Dell's Bios firmware has power management settings for maximum performance, battery-optimised mode and a maximum battery mode, but these are bypassed by Windows XP's support for Intel's SpeedStep technology. The only way to set the system to work continually at full performance is to change the Power Schemes in the Control Panel's Power Options. Under our BatteryMark 4.01 benchmark, the ppx rec- orded a battery life of just two hours and five minutes with the processor running at 2GHz; using the lowest performance setting only gave us an extra 10 minutes.

The Nvidia GeForce4 Go graphics adapter drives the display at a native resolution of 1600x1200. The keyboard is an improvement over earlier models, and both TrackPoint and Easy Pad pointing devices are provided.

As well as its WLAN and modem port, the ppx has an integrated 10/100 Ethernet adapter. Infrared and IEEE.1394 ports are also fitted, as well as the standard serial, parallel and twin USB ports. Two PC Card slots provide room for expansion.