Dell Inspiron 6000 vs. Latitude 610

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I've narrowed my laptop choices down to these two.</p>

<p><b>Inspiron 6000 w/ Dedicated Graphics</b>
PRO: firewall, better battery life
CON: heavy, gets hot easily
PRICE AFTER UPGRADES: $2123</p>

<p><b>Latitude D610</b>
PRO: more portable, Latitudes are higher grade?
CON: less battery life, no firewall, headphone static
PRICE AFTER UPGRADES: $1949</p>

<p>I wish I knew more about how they actually run. Any opinions? I'm not much of a gamer, but I do watch videos and usually listen to music while working. I also use Photoshop every now and then. </p>

<p>Right now, I'm leaning towards the 610 simply because it's portable. However, does anyone know how the two perform when playing MPG, AVI, etc.?</p>

2

<p>D610 has better battery life</p>

3

<p>I have a 610, its pretty nice. The latitude line is generally nicer since they have a metal body.</p>

4

<p>firewall??? as a deciding measure? ****...</p>

<p>go with the latitude over the POS inspiron line</p>

5

<p>A firewall is not a physical object. It is simply a program that limits the information that is received by your computer; there are several free firewall programs out there. Unless you are extremely lazy and don't want to download a firewall program then a pre-loaded firewall isn't an advantage at all.</p>

6

<p>Firewall as in the port IEEE1664 or something like that.</p>

7

<p>It does have a better battery life? I thought Inspiron 6000 had 5.5 hours while the Latitude D610 had about 4.</p>

8

<p>Did you ever run into problems with your D610?</p>

<p>In terms of...Speed? Graphics? Sound?</p>

9

<p>cabellero, the 6000 has better battery life than the d610 with the standard battery. But if you purchase the extra media-bay batt w/ the d610, then you can get about 5-6 hrs.</p>

<p>You must be talking about fireWIRE (IEEE 1394). You are correct that only the 6000 has a port and not the d610, but that should only matter to you if you have a Firewire device, such as an ipod. Otherwise, most add-ons these days (incl. the newest ipods) are USB2. Don't fret yourself too much over it.</p>

<p>I don't know if the 6000 has this problem, but the d610 does have a major problem with its headphone jack. If you plugged in your headphones or speakers into it, you will hear a hiss that gets louder when you hard drive is in use. All d610s have this problem and Dell seems to have neglected it, for now. Until they come up with some fix, the only option you have is to buy a small USB sound card which you can hook your headphones up to.</p>

<p>Finally, I believe that you do get better tech support with the Latitude (as in better chances of a U.S. rep than an overseas one) as opposed to the Inspiron.</p>

<p>Other than that, the choice is your own. If you want lightweight and something that fits in a small bag, go with the d610. If you plan to use your laptop more on a desk and don't plan to do much travel with it, then go with the 6000. Either way, you'll be getting a good product.</p>

10

<p>Thanks redski. I think you helped me finalize my decision.</p>