Anyone have a Dell Latitude C400?

[iamme]

just wondering how these laptops have been holding up over the years. i'm thinking of buying a used one.

questions:
has anyone tried upgrading the HD to a 5400rpm model?

are there antenna leads in the mini-PCI compartment?

how is the keyboard compared to a Thinkpad X series?

 

[Plester]

probably not worth posting as it doesn't answer your direct question, but what the heck. i have the latitude L400 - predecessor to the C400. PIII 700mhz and 256mb ram is the max specs, but with a tweaked and lean XP Pro install, its plenty quick. i put an ibm 5400rpm drive in it and that helps speed things up. nice 12.1" screen and close to full sized keyboard. also very light (under 3.5lbs). best of all between $300-450 on fleabay, with tons of them coming up all the time. finally a personal opinion, but the L400 is a thing of beauty next to a C400 with all it's odd ball curves. the L400 is worth a look if you want to save a bunch of bucks.

ps. a 3com wireless nic with x-jack antenna makes for nearly integrated wireless.

 

[iamme]

Originally posted by: Plester
probably not worth posting as it doesn't answer your direct question, but what the heck. i have the latitude L400 - predecessor to the C400. PIII 700mhz and 256mb ram is the max specs, but with a tweaked and lean XP Pro install, its plenty quick. i put an ibm 5400rpm drive in it and that helps speed things up. nice 12.1" screen and close to full sized keyboard. also very light (under 3.5lbs). best of all between $300-450 on fleabay, with tons of them coming up all the time. finally a personal opinion, but the L400 is a thing of beauty next to a C400 with all it's odd ball curves. the L400 is worth a look if you want to save a bunch of bucks.

ps. a 3com wireless nic with x-jack antenna makes for nearly integrated wireless.

ah, i remember this laptop. it was a clone of a Gateway subnotebook (or vice versa).

very nice and simplistic design. great laptop.

 

[JonB]

We have both L400 and C400's in my office. Actually only one L400, but 5 C400's. The L400 is still my favorite, though the processor doesn't win any speed records (its just a P3 750, I think). We've had lots of Latitudes fail (usually hard drives) but the 400's keep on ticking.

 

[loup garou]

We've bought a couple for clients and I grabbed two cheapies off ebay for my mother and sister a while back. Solid little machine, good build quality. Keyboard is a bit flexy and the keys are "plasticky" if you're picky. I don't think you can get them with USB2, which really bugged me. Nice screen, excellent performance, very stable. My mother travels daily and it has held up beautifully. Probably one of the best deals you'll find on a used lightweight, major brand laptop with reasonable performance. I think my mom's was about $600-700 for a PIII1.2, 512MB, 30GB, cdrw system with a year or so warranty left (about a year ago) off ebay.

 

[trikster2]

My C400 is holding up fine, but I would not take one for free if you gave it to me.

Hot: rugged, Small, bright screen

Not: HEAVY. horrible Battery life. External CD/DVD blech.Typical dell POS keyboard.

 

[cyberhh]

We have about 100 nationwide - I have to say that all in all I like them:

The only complaints I have are echos of the other replies:

1. Crappy Keyboard - the Dell C800 is the only keyboard of Dell's that I like
2. No USB 2.0 - cards are cheap, but still
3. If the Mini-PCI slot is open (not used by the Ethernet NIC) then it has antenna leads, I just cannot remember if the C400 uses the minipci for the ethernet card.