Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC User Review

[stefan]

by Stefan

Alright, here's what you've been waiting for. The first Dell Tablet PC to hit the market, the new Latitude XT. Forget the HP, forget the Toshiba, throw away your IBM. This tablet takes the cake and is going to be a tough competitor in the right market.

Dell's first Tablet PC, the Latitude XT. (view large image)

Dell Latitude XT specs as reviewed: (tested price $1,900 for the corporate spec model)

• Processor: Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo ULV 1.2GHz
• Memory: 2GB DDR2 SDRAM
• Hard drive: 80GB 5200 rpm SATA
• Screen: 12.7"
• Graphics: ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 (256 Mb)
• Optical Drive: as tested was a CD-RW/DVD in a beautiful external drive
• Wireless Communications: Broadcom 802.11g Network Card
• 3x USB Ports
• 1x 1394 (Firewire)
• 1x SD Card reader
• 1x PC card slot
• 1x VGA-15 pin
• Weight: 3.6lbs.

Design and Build                              

Dell's new XT tablet will soon catch on as a good substitute for those Toshiba, HP and IBM tablets. It is an ultraportable, thin and light tablet that will no doubt eventually be converted into Dell's proprietary ATG format being used with the D630 line.

The Latitude XT in tablet mode with pen. (view large image)

From a student's, mobile note-taking fanatics, and the on-the-job technicians view, this Tablet will be delivered more and more to the oil-field service industry. This laptop is spec'd in a premature manner by Dell, and by no means is the best available.

Display

The 12.1" widescreen LCD has a fantastic touch screen. The screen has great viewing angles and is nearly flush with the bezel. It has no dead pixels, a bright screen, and a max resolution of 1280 x 800, the XT Tablet is by far one of the best I've seen on any Dell laptop. The backlight is extremely even and very bright.

Latitude XT in notebook mode. (view large image)

Speakers

The speakers are quite frankly terrible. There is one speaker on the left side of the machine, which can get very loud. If you are in the market for a laptop that can play music, look for a gaming computer. Like most ultraportables, this laptop's audio is meant to playback voice messages in Outlook. However, this is common in business model Tablet PCs.

Processor and Performance

While it is only 1.2GHz, the Core 2 Duo processor allows it to multitask very well. When tested with several programs running, software installations and the unzipping of a file, there was little to no interruption with each process. The most dissatisfying aspect of the laptop's power is in the start-up time. It was comparably slow to other Dell laptop's with similar pricing. I had no problems with wireless connections and the battery life was typical of an ultraportable lasting from 3-4 hours depending on usage.

Benchmarks

HDTune: TOSHIBA MK8009GAH

Transfer Rate Minimum	11.4 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum	25.5 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average	19.9 MB/sec
Access Time	21.0 ms
Burst Rate	53.8 MB/sec
CPU Usage	1.9%

 

PCMark05 measures the systems performance as a whole.

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Dell Latitude XT (Intel Core 2 Duo ULV 1.2GHz, Radeon Xpress 1250 graphics)	1,561 PCMarks
HP tx2000 (AMD Turion 64 X2 2.3GHz, Nvidia Go 6150 graphics)	3,738 PCMarks
Asus R1E (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz, GMA 965 chipset)	4,679 PCMarks
Fujitsu LifeBook T2010 (Intel Core 2 Duo ULV 1.2GHz, GMA X3100 graphics)	2,334 PCMarks
Gateway C-140x (Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz, ATI X2300 HD graphics)	4,342 PCMarks
HP Compaq 2710p (Intel Core 2 Duo ULV 1.2GHz, GMA X3100 graphics)	2,453 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad X61 (Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz, GMA X3100 graphics)	3,473 PCMarks
Fujitsu LifeBook T4220 (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz, GMA X3100 graphics)	4,171 PCMarks
Gateway E-155C (Intel Core 2 Duo ULV 1.06GHz, Intel GMA 950 graphics)	2,205 PCMarks
LG C1 (Intel Core Duo 1.2GHz, Nvidia Go 7300)	2,568 PCMarks
Toshiba R400 (Intel Core Duo ULV 1.2GHz, Intel GMA 950 graphics)	2,187 PCMarks
HP tx1000 (AMD Turion X2 2.0GHz, Nvidia Go 6150)	3,052 PCMarks
Asus R1F (1.66GHz Core Duo, Intel GMA 950 graphics)	2,724 PCMarks

 

*Note the PCMark05 score may be lower due to the power settings on the notebook and the fact it's the Enterprise Edition, which will most likely be updated before its final release.*

Windows Experience

Windows Experience score. (view large image)

Heat and Noise

I was surprised to find that the laptop was relatively comfortable to use. The fan is extremely quiet, and the heat will only be uncomfortable if the user is running on the "high performance" power setting. All said and done, Dell's use of materials, the location of the heat sink and graphics card allow the tablet to be used very comfortably in hand and on the move.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The touchpad is the same you find on all Dell's. It's a little smaller than I would have liked, but the new buttons on the track pad and the stick are much better than previous Dell models, especially those on the Inspiron series.

Latitude XT keyboard. (view large image)

The tablet's pen is awkward. It has a good feel, but would be a little better with a grip built onto the pen. It does have an attachment for the lanyard on the top of the pen. Combined with the touchscreen, the two are fantastic. The touchscreen has what is called the N-trig digitizer with "pen flicks". With both enabled, the usability of the tablet is amazing.

Input and Output Ports

The Latitude XT is packed full of features. Every user should be thrilled with what is offered and if three USB ports, IEEE 1394, SD Card slot, PC Card slot, fingerprint reader, headphone and microphone jacks, Ethernet port, a VGA port and a Security port aren't enough for you then you will have to buy the media bay, which wasn't included in my package.

Right side view of the ports. (view large image)

Left side view of the ports. (view large image)

Operating System and Software

Microsoft's Vista operating system is nice. There isn’t really much to say, it is by far the best touchscreen tablet software on the market now. It is as functional as the iPhone and intuitive as well. The flick based software that allows you to scroll with the ease of a flick of your finger is definitely a winner.

Customer Support

As usual, Dell's award-winning service is fantastic, especially the service that is given to the small-business and medium to large business lines. I have never been unsatisfied with the Dell experience, if you complain, they will respond. You just need to know how to push their buttons.

Conclusion

If you're looking for a personal tablet, look elsewhere. The price of the enterprise edition will not be available to the consumer market. It is a powerful, extremely precise and well built machine that will be appealing to medical professionals, enterprises, and on-site technical service officers and employees. Would I buy it for personal use? No. Would I recommend it to people or businesses? In a heartbeat! I work at a medical professionals office, and if we used this machine we could greatly increase our efficiency. It's not for everyone, but it's great at what it does.

[Shogmaster]

Why does this smell like a Dell blog post? $1900? Is that with Dell's employee discount?

Seriously, I couldn't get any of the configurations anywhere near $1900 with those specs. And this is your very first post too. Yeah.....

[nikecar]

*sniffsniff*

MA!!! Time to get the boots on, the **** is getting deep!!!

I even looked at a few Education sites, including ours and the best for the BASE model is $2300.

That included 40GB HD, 1GB Ram, WXP, the 1.06GHz processor. Far from your "specs"

Still higher than the $1900.


I love this comment:

Every user should be thrilled with what is offered

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA I'd be thrilled if it was free.

[Tiffany Boggs]

If you read from the spec chart, it is the Enterprise Edition. It is a business model not available to the consumer market, which he states in the conclusion. That is why it is so cheap. We liked his point of view on the review and posted it to give others users a glance of the XT in action.

[ZippySLC]

Forget the HP, forget the Toshiba, throw away your IBM. This tablet takes the cake and is going to be a tough competitor in the right market.

Yeah, except that it's more expensive and lower spec'd than the HP, Toshiba, or IBM offerings.

The only benefit to the Dell tablet is on-site service.

[Shogmaster]

If you read from the spec chart, it is the Enterprise Edition. It is a business model not available to the consumer market, which he states in the conclusion. That is why it is so cheap. We liked his point of view on the review and posted it to give others users a glance of the XT in action.

What's the point of reviewing a model that we can't get a hold of? And WTH is "enterprise" model other than the same ones that they offer at their large "business" site? And that review is full of happy thin layer fluff other than the comment about the "awkward" pen.

It just smells fishy to me, Tiffany. Not you guys of course. I'm talking about the reviewer.

[Tiffany Boggs]

He wanted to help out our audience and sent along this review. I do think the feature set is nice on the XT. Yes, it is expensive I agree and we can't get it for his (business) price but the point of the review is to see the tablet in action and how it performs.

Btw he doesn't recommend the XT for consumer user, he just says it is great for businesses. He recommends a different tablet for personal use.

[chinesefireball121]

Well it was said at the end of the post that this price isn't available to general consumers.

Besides for that prive I got my R1E, and I know what I prefer

EDIT: wow - alot of posts suddenly - when I was writing there was only Shog's first post

[Shogmaster]

Let me just say that price has tons to do with how one enjoys a experience. If I paid full price to watch let's say I AM LEGEND at the theaters, I would have felt cheated where as having watched a friend's Academy screener DVD for free, I enjoyed it much more.

I'm not saying the XT should be free but shaving around $1000 of the price would severely skew one's experience to the positive.

[jmartin]

Has anyone heard any rumors about that high price tag everyone's harping about coming down in the near future?

And can the reviewer give us a shot of that screen outside? I'm really very curious to see how their 400 nits...etc. compare to other displays. (Dreaming of working on the beach this summer...)