Anyone with a dell D600

[AznMaverick]

i am reading the reviews from HERE and a LOT of people are complaining about the HOT hard drive, buzzing ac adapter, and the flimsy screen that cracks sometimes. can you all verify this. (crap, i should've did this research BEFORE i bought this laptop...)

 

[Liviathan]

Well do you have any problems with it?? and how do you like it??

I am thinking of getting a Dell Centrino in the next couple of months...sometimes reviews cloud the mind...if you are happy with it why care what the reviews say.

 

[AznMaverick]

well, that's the thing, i didn't receive mine yet (expected date is around jan 15).

 

[vshah]

i have a dell d500 (same chassis) & i love it...no flimsyness anywhere, and it gets me about ~4 hours browsing the web

-Vivan

 

[Pandaren]

a LOT of people are complaining about the HOT hard drive, buzzing ac adapter, and the flimsy screen that cracks sometimes. can you all verify this

I have used the Latitude D600 in person and here are my comments on those issues.

(1) Hard drive - the unit I used had a 5400RPM drive, and although it did make the left palmrest warm, I cannot recall it ever becoming unbearably hot, even after I had the drive working like crazy to install Windows XP Pro.

(2) Buzzing AC adapter - Early revision AC adapters made intolerable noise (my T40 had this problem as well, but a new adapter fixed it). I assume Dell has fixed the problem by now, but you might want to go to Dell's support boards and ask the folks there about it.

(3) Flimsy screen - The D600's LCD housing is composed of magnesium alloy (cool and metallic to the touch) and as far as I could tell it was not flimsy in any way.

These concerns in my view are relatively minor and miss the D600's biggest flaw - a completely craptactular keyboard. The keyboard on the unit I used rattled and flexed like crazy, and the keys had almost no travel or good feedback. The trackpad was somewhat worse than I expected, but not horrendous.

The D600 is not a terrible machine, but get a ThinkPad T4x series or R40 (budget) if you can. They're easier to type on, and have a nifty scroll key that you can use with the trackpoint.