Dell's C480 should appeal to corporate buyers looking for power and functionality. Those looking for something pretty should look elsewhere.
Dell's first Mobile Pentium 4 notebook was the impressive Inspiron 8200. Now Intel´s latest mobile chip has made it into Dell's business-orientated Latitude range, which concentrates on corporate-friendly factors like platform stability and manageability. The Latitude C840 is a solid piece of technology in every sense of the word -- it´s well constructed and a good performer, but it's also bulky and heavy.
The Latitude C840 is no bargain at $AU6,549.40, but its specification allows it to cope with most tasks with some ease. Our review sample was based around a 1.6GHz Mobile Intel Pentium 4 Processor-M, but clock speeds for the MP4-M are now available from 1.4GHz up to a maximum of 1.8GHz. The CPU was supported by 256MB of DDR SDRAM, which is expandable to 1GB. The chipset, as in all other Mobile Pentium 4 notebooks we´ve reviewed so far, is Intel´s 845MP.
The system´s basic design is the familiar three-spindle arrangement, with a fixed optical drive on the left-hand side, in this case a Samsung CD-RW/DVD combo drive, and two front-mounted bays, one modular and the other containing the battery. The modular bay contained a floppy drive in our review system, but Dell supplies a variety of options that are common to the whole Latitude range. The hard disk is a 20GB Hitachi drive with a rotational speed of 4,200rpm.
As far as I/O and expansion is concerned, you get a pair of stacked Type II PC Card slots, built-in 802.11b wireless networking on a Mini PCI card, plus integrated 56Kbps modem and 10/100Mbps Ethernet connectivity. Unlike many notebook manufacturers, Dell retains legacy ports such as serial, parallel and PS/2, as many corporate customers will need to support older peripherals. However, newer connections such as USB (2), IEEE 1394 and S-Video-out are also provided. S-Video-out, composite video-out and digital audio-out are supported via a splitter cable that plugs into the S-Video port.
The Latitude C840 features an excellent graphics subsystem, with nVidia´s cutting-edge 64MB GeForce4 440 Go chip driving a top-quality 15.1in. active-matrix display with a native resolution of 1,600 by 1,200 pixels. The 88-key keyboard is sensibly laid out and the keys provide good feedback. There are dual navigation options, courtesy of a touchpad and a trackpoint (or pointing stick), with a pair of mouse buttons for each device.
Like other Mobile Pentium 4 notebooks we´ve tested, Latitude C840 is a solid rather than spectacular performer. It beats the only other 1.6GHz model we´ve tested -- Toshiba´s Tecra 9100 -- on both Business Winstone 2001 (33.9 versus 29.8) and Content Creation Winstone 2002 (22.1 versus 16.5), although the Dell system did have twice the RAM fitted (256MB versus 128MB). Although it´s not high on the list of corporate requirements, the Latitude C840´s 64MB GeForce4 440 Go graphics chip will ensure excellent 3D graphics performance if necessary.
Clearly the Latitude C840 is well specified and a pretty good performer. So what are the drawbacks? Mainly, they´re to do with look and feel. Corporate customers may value functionality above aesthetics, but the Latitude design is utilitarian to a fault: it´s a big and bulky grey slab that undoubtedly does the job, but not with any style.
As befits a business-orientated product, the C840 comes with generous three-year, on-site warranty for parts and labour.
It´s not exactly cheap at $AU6,549.40, but the Dell Latitude C840's combination of speed, features and support make it a good choice for the corporate power user -- particularly as optional components are interchangeable with other Latitude models. However, it won´t win any design awards, and you won´t want to carry it much further than the distance from your desktop to a meeting room.
Dell Latitude C840
Company: Dell Australia
Price: $AU6,549.40
Phone: 1800 812 393
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