Apr 14, 2012

Hardware: Dell Latitude XT3

Recently I got a Dell Latitude XT3 for work. So far it seems well build and I kind of like the simple design. It's light enough to carry around and has a big enough display to code with. Also the Multi-Touch Screen is handy for me as I do a lot of touch development (MS Surface, WinTouch, Mobile as well as hopefully soon Win8/WinRT).

Positive Parts:
  • Tablet convertible and Pen/Touch usage.
  • Fast SSD is great and likely from all choosable options the most important one.
  • Layout of all Ports. As with my old Dell-Netbook the layout is very usage oriented. Ports are where you expect/need them to be. 
  • Build in Bluetooth and SD card port are always handy to have.
  • I like the Keyboard. It feels good and has all the keys on the right places.
  • The hardware feels very robust and it's still light enough to carry around with you.
  • Even under stress (got the i5 version) the fans are very silent.
  • Hardware seems to work fine in both Windows and Linux.

Negative Parts:
  • The lock to hold the display while its closed/in tablet mode seems a bit hit and miss. It doesn't lock well and often I have to try is multiple times to event get it to lock. 
  • The Intel GPU is a bit on the "light" side. For a Sandy Bridge CPU this is normal. And for future Intel GPUs this will likely not be a problem anymore. It's still well usable but I get it to the point where I feel that it's not keeping up. Especially of course if you plug-in an external monitor. Ivy Bridge will improve a lot in this area.
I think the Notebook fits well for my work. And it lets me work from home/university/everywhere I got internet access. More on the software side later ...

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