Yesterday, I promised I’d share the lowdown on my favorite Dell notebook — the one that makes me feel like a true road warrior. That’s the Latitude D430, a beautiful little machine with a starting weight that comes in at 3.0 pounds. Why, that’s no heavier than my autographed copy of The Gary Snyder Reader!

I had one of these at my last job, and I loved it. Because it was so light, I carried it with me everywhere. Because it was so small, I could tuck it into my knapsack safely ensconced between mouse pads, t-shirts, whatever was soft. I never sat through a meeting, conference, workshop, seminar or keynote without pulling it out and keeping my notes on it. That meant I never had to write another word in my reporter notebook again. (Since I can’t read my own writing, this was a real boon to productivity!)

Here’s the standard rundown: an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, XP Home Edition, a 12.1-inch wide screen, 1GB of memory, a 40GB of storage, a CDRW/DVD, and an 802.11g wireless card.

Now here’s the caveat: If you have big fingers, you may find the keyboard unusable. There’s little space between the core set of keys and the extraneous ones such as the num pad or the arrow keys. You’ll constantly find yourself squinching up your shoulders to the detriment of your neck. Fortunately, I don’t have big fingers.

Also, you’ll want a desktop monitor to plug into if this is your main machine. Likewise, you’ll need to haul an extra battery with you. The standard one would give me a little more than a couple of hours, not nearly enough to cover a day at a conference.

Now that I think about it, you’ll want to upgrade almost everything — hard drive, memory, operating system. But once you do, you’ll never want to give up your D430.

Posted on November 21st, 2007 by dian