With the release of the Latitude D820 Dell gave us an impressive makeover from it’s predecessor the D810. The Latitude D820 has much more “punch” than its prior version. With a brilliant 15.4-inch widescreen and other cutting-edge features it offers excellent performance (the D820 is about 30% faster than the D810). Indeed its one of the fastest Core Duo machines in the market. For those traveling users, the above average battery life ensures longer hours of work. The Bottom Line: The Dell Latitude D820 is an excellent accessory for businesses professionals looking for a powerful, well-rounded portable system suitable for the road or office.

Targeted at the business market, Dell’s Latitude laptops feature top of the line parts that are always best for most business purposes. This model (like Dell’s entire Latitude line) was deliberately designed in a manner to simplify any maintenance issues that might arise and perform exceptionally well with anything the corporate user might throw at it.

Processor & Graphics Performance
Featuring a 1.83GHz Core Duo processor the D820 is truly fast. The Core Duo has a 667 MHz front side bus, which helps to maximize the performance. If you enjoy speed then The DDR2 SDRAM memory (running at 667 MHz) will be another eye opener. Don’t blink or you might miss something.

This laptop responded quite well to all user inputs (things load quickly). In my testing this system proved to be very reliable with NO instances of lockup, freeze, hang or BSOD.

Design: The Look and Feel
One of Dell’s very welcomed “upgrades” is they made the Latitude D820 a more portable (light weight as well as a slim) unit, unlike the D810 which was almost a desktop replacement. A sleek and slim model, the D820 is 7.6mm thinner than D810 with overall dimensions of 360.6 x 261.6 x 35.6 mm. The screen of D820 is fixed to the base with sturdy steel hinges and the entire frame consists of strong magnesium alloy, enhancing the style as well as structure at the same time.

With a smooth and easy-to-work keyboard, the Latitude D820 offers one of the best laptop keyboard designs in the business (very easy on the hands). Mouse options include a pointing stick and a touch pad both having individual sets of mouse buttons.

Multimedia
With an ultrafine 1900x1200 native resolution, the 15.4” D820 screen renders graphics perfectly. One doesn’t work all the time, and with this screen size (and resolution) watching DVDs are very enjoyable.

It also offers the workstation version of NVIDIA's GeForce 7400 graphics solution. If you’re looking for an extraordinary game performance don’t look here. However, the D820 has received 3DMark06 benchmark and 670 3DMarks.

I have to admit that the performances of the speakers are average. Located on either side of the unit. The sound didn’t quite knock me over. Three buttons (mute, volume up and volume down) located on the side made volume adjustment quite easy.

Can Anyone Say Input / Output?
Although not in excess, the Latitude D820 has enough ports, slots and jacks to manage almost any requirement. To start with there are four USB 2.0 ports (one of these being a half power jack and half USB port, which allows you to run external peripherals (i.e. an external hard drive). There are the typical headphone and microphone jacks, as well as separate slots for Smart Cards, ExpressCards, and Type II PC Cards. One really cool addition to the D820is the four-pin FireWire not found with the D810 is the latest addition.

This model is not a consumer-oriented laptop in. It lacks good multimedia features such as S/PDIF audio, S-Video, and media card-reader, but that’s just me looking for something to gripe about. It is designed for business professional and not the online gamer.

Communication
One outstanding feature of the Latitude D820 is it’s wireless networking capabilities. It has a switch on its left edge that functions like a Wi-Fi finder. On sliding the switch to the right, the built-in 802.11 wireless cards automatically starts searching for the available network. The LED status gets illuminated automatically indicating the presence of networks. Whether the system is on or off, the feature works; it is quite handy for those who would like to save time on boot up. And of course there are the almost outdated 56Kbps modem and built-in Gigabit Ethernet jack. Rest assured when you’re on the road you’ll be connected.

In Summary
The Latitude D820 is a great laptop selection for business professionals (and students). With it’s 15.4" wide screen one would think that it would not be easy to carry on around the world. However, it can be used very comfortably on a plane or on your lap without worrying about knocking over your soda or bag of peanuts. It definitely tops in productivity and flexibility. For the form factor, there exists a better balance between the portability and build in quality than the Latitude D820. Overall, this system can be an effective notebook for those needing to perform serious jobs effectively.