Dell Latitude Z600

Executives looking to impose their status on underlings should take a gander at the Dell Inspiron 6400 Battery. This strikingly thin 16-inch notebook of  Inspiron 6400 Battery was tailor-made for the corner office. A soft touch finish, chrome accents, and two cool technologies—induction charging and Dell XPS M1730 Battery—will inspire envy. Plus, you can get some work done in instant-on mode, which uses its own ARM processor, to save battery life. Unfortunately, at $3,806 as configured ($1,799 starting price), this notebook XPS M1730 Battery doesn’t come cheap and its endurance is lacking. Does this luxury business laptop’s strengths outweigh the drawbacks?

Design

Even from afar, you can see that the fujitsu t5010 battery is a stylish machine. The purple-maroon cover has a soft touch finish, and is set off by angular chrome accents that bracket the battery. While it’s just 0.6 inches thin, it also has a very large footprint at 15.6 x 11.6 inches, similar to the hp compaq 6510b battery. In some respects, the rear design makes the Z600 reminiscent of a very expensive portfolio; even the power brick has a glossy black finish.



At 5.0 pounds with the extended battery and 4.6 pounds with the regular battery, the Z600 isn’t as light as an ultraportable, but neither is it uncomfortable to carry around. However, its large footprint makes it difficult to fit in smaller hp 6510b battery bags.



Too bad there’s no latch securing the lid to the deck; holding the notebook of vgp-bps8 upright by the hinge causes the lid to open slightly. The extended battery also wobbled when we held the notebook toward the hinge for sony vgp-bps8. We expect a more thoughtful design from something this expensive.



This same soft touch finish covers the keyboard deck, and is bordered by brushed metal. Above the black island-style keyboard are haptic volume controls that sony vgp-bps9 light up and buzz gently when pressed. To the right of the keyboard is a fingerprint reader, and to the right of the touchpad is a sony vgp-bps9/b Card reader.



Touching the right edge of the bezel activates one of the unique features of the Z600, Dell EdgeTouch. A small rectangle brings up five icons along the right edge: audio controls, vgp-bps9/b card capture software, Dell ControlPoint, Dell FaceAware utility, and Internet Explorer. Pressing the bezel vgp-bps9/s adjacent to an icon launches it. You can also modify what app icons appear. It’s a clever way of sony vgp-bps9/s to quickly access often-used apps and utilities without the need for a touchscreen (though for this price we might expect one).

Heat

Being as thin as it is, there’s not much room on the inside of the vgp-bps10 to dissipate heat. After playing a Hulu video at full screen for 15 minutes, the touchpad measured 86 degrees Fahrenheit, the space between the G and H keys was 96 degrees, and the middle of the bottom VGP-BPS12 was a scorching 116 degrees. We consider anything above 100 degrees to be unacceptable SONY VGP-BPS12.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Typing on the SONY BATTERY was a pleasure; the black glossy keys were well spaced and had excellent response. It was also easy to type in the dark, as the letters and numbers on the keys lit up when we pressed them. Using the Dell ControlPoint utility, you can also control when the backlight comes on, how bright it gets, and for how long. Our only nitpick is that the keys picked up fingerprint smudges.



The touchpad on the Sony is quite large at 3.6 x 2.0 inches, and its matte surface had very low friction. Just be careful when you’re typing; more than once our thumb brushed up against it and moved the cursor to a different place in the document. The mouse buttons below of DEll  battery are also brushed metal, and blend nicely with the border. They, too, were snappy without being stiff.