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Dell Latitude C600 Review
Dell Latitude C600 series of laptops appeared about year 2000 and at once received very high ratings from customers and in editorial reviews. Today it is one of the most popular Dell models on refurbished laptops market.
Latitude C600 weights 5.95 lb (2.7 kg) and is 1.38" (3.5 cm) thick what doesn't make it ultra portable. However, it fits well to every typical laptop case leaving enough space to put AC adapter and other peripherals inside. Because of its high expansion capabilities and a big, 14.1" screen, it can also serve well as a desktop replacement laptop.
Equipped with Pentium III Mobile 600MHz - 1200MHz processor on 100MHz FSB (Front Side Bus) and up to 512MB of PC100 SDRAM memory it is powerful enough to satisfy even quite demanding user. Even in the slowest 600MHz configuration you can install and comfortably use all Windows operating systems up to XP. However, remember that to use Windows 2000 or XP (especially the latter) with more than only a word processor 256MB of memory is a must have.
The wonderful feature of this laptop is a modular bay placed on the front side, where you can put one of seven different devices. This model was manufactured and sold with CD-ROM and FDD modules as a standard and that's the configuration you will most often meet looking for offers on second hand market. As there is only one bay, you can have only one of them installed as internal drive, although FDD can also be externally connected to parallel port using special cable.
Full list of devices you can install in media bay:
- 10x - 24x CD-ROM drive
- 1.44MB floppy drive
- 8X DVD-ROM
- 8x/4x/24x CD-RW drive
- ZIP drive
- Second battery
- Second hard drive
There are a lot of DVD-ROM drives and CD-RW drives for C600 on eBay and other used laptop parts resellers, so you can easily replace the standard CD-ROM drive for cheap.
Dell Latitude C600 comes with Lithium-Ion 3600mAh battery that allows to work without external power supply for up to 3.5 hours. With additional battery installed in media bay you can extend this time period up to 7 hours. Such a long battery life is achievable partly because of a Mobile - low-power version of a CPU. Except low power consumption, it heats less than standard processors, which in connection with great hybrid cooling system (heat sinks + variable speed active fan) makes this laptop really quiet. During typical usage fan doesn't work almost at all.
What customers usually like the most is very good, bright, 14.1" TFT display and comfortable, quiet keyboard. As a pointing device you can use either touchpad or point stick. They are both installed. Some people complain about this solution, claiming that when using point stick they put palms on touchpad causing unintentional mouse cursor moves. Most people consider also side-mounted stereo speakers as good but miss hardware sound level control.
With Latitude C600 you will have all your networking needs satisfied thanks to integrated 56k modem and 100Mb/s Ethernet card. Additionally each laptop has internal wireless 802.11b antenna build-in. It is designed to work with TrueMobile wireless mini-PCI LAN card, which you can find on eBay for about $30. Unfortunately, you cannot have wireless LAN and traditional LAN/modem at the same time because it occupies the same mini-PCI slot, where standard Ethernet/Modem combo card is installed. If you have to have both, the best solution is to buy PC Card wireless card instead of internal, mini-PCI version.
Dell Latitude C600 has everything you may want for office type work. It proves to do well both in a way and as a desktop replacement notebook. It is mostly thanks to the universal media bay that gives you long battery life when traveling and all necessary drives when using it at home. It is also easily upgradeable. Upgrading memory or replacing hard disk demands removing only one screw in both cases. Solid and durable mechanical design guarantees long life. That is important when dealing with few years old computer, which is always the case when buying refurbished notebook.
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