Dell Latitude CPi D300XT

Dell Latitude CPi D300XT

SUMMARY

PRO: Very fast, excellent keyboard CON: Modem not included

Number one on our power chart for five straight months, this notebook with corporate aspirations appears headed for a record. The Latitude CPi D300XT deserves its long run: It's a pleasure to use, not too heavy, and fast. Its PC WorldBench score of 159 makes it one of the quickest notebooks we've ever tested.

The D300XT's pleasing charcoal-gray case measures 1.75 inches thick (a little thinner than the current notebook standard of 2 inches) and includes one modular bay on the side. Weighing in at 7.4 pounds and offering slightly more than 3 hours of battery life, the D300XT proves more than adequate away from the office. You can double its travel life by purchasing the optional $169 second battery. Just keep in mind that the second battery weighs almost a pound. (But if you leave the CD-ROM or floppy drive at the office, traveling with both batteries increases the notebook's total weight by only a fraction of a pound.)

The Latitude CPi D300XT comes with a responsive, accurate touchpad and an excellent keyboard. Adequately sized keys offer crisp action and occupy the expected locations, so adapting from a desktop keyboard to the D300XT's is a breeze. You shouldn't have to upgrade this notebook's generous 6.4GB hard drive any time soon.

The CPi D300XT's brilliant screen produces a sharp image from edge to edge. We do have one gripe with the casing around the display, though: Because it's wider at the top of the screen, when the lid is closed it protrudes slightly over the edge of the notebook's case. As a result, if the portable ever falls on its side, the fragile screen would absorb much of the shock.

As with most laptops, the system's built-in stereo speakers yield tinny sound. But MIDI music has a fuller sound, thanks to a software wavetable synthesizer.

Dell generally earns high support and reliability marks from PC World readers, and in our recent anonymous calls to the company's technical support phone line, we encountered shorter wait times and better advice than we have in the past.