Dell Latitude L400

I saw one of these systems the other day, and it certainly attracted
my interest. Not only is it small and thin, it is also cheaper than a
Macbook Air. ;-) I could think of some good uses for such a notebook
computer.

The one I saw was running (and had a good battery) but its owner
reported occasional thermal shutdown problems. I could see that being
the result of a dust problem. What really came across as a show
stopper was the RAM ceiling--apparently this system tops out at 256MB.

Did Dell ever market other models that don't have such a low RAM
ceiling but do share roughly the same form factor? Or is the 256MB
limit not necessarily true?

William

<> wrote in message
news:0170f23a-15f5-4a74-94b3-...
>I saw one of these systems the other day, and it certainly attracted
> my interest. Not only is it small and thin, it is also cheaper than a
> Macbook Air. ;-) I could think of some good uses for such a notebook
> computer.
>
> The one I saw was running (and had a good battery) but its owner
> reported occasional thermal shutdown problems. I could see that being
> the result of a dust problem. What really came across as a show
> stopper was the RAM ceiling--apparently this system tops out at 256MB.
>
> Did Dell ever market other models that don't have such a low RAM
> ceiling but do share roughly the same form factor? Or is the 256MB
> limit not necessarily true?
>
> William


There are others.

The Latitude D400 comes to mind, but even its total RAM capacity was only
512mb:
http://www.dell.com/downloads/us/pro.../d400_spec.pdf

Dell Latitude X1 (newer, more RAM capacity)
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2283

A much more expensive (and current ) option might be the XPS M1210 (12" LCD)
model:
http://www.notebookreview.com/defaul...S+M1210+Review


hth

Stew

the l400 was a great form factor as was the x1 but they are old and slow and
lack an integrated optical drive. dell never made a great 'ultra-portable'
machine. as much as i hate the crappy support from sony, i have to admit
that their new tz machine is quite impressive. it took me two months of
regularly chasing up on sony's promises to get xp fully supported on it
(only sold with vista but advertised as xp compatible yet i found 4 glaring
issues that they did ultimately admit they did not know and ultimately,
after months, resolved for me). this machine has some of the latest
features available today, such as a led backlight for the lcd panel that are
very energy efficient. the thing is very fast (with xp, a dog with vista
for some reason likely because of proprietary bloatware they preinstall),
lasts for over six hours on battery, is very small, and yet has a integrated
dvd recordable drive.

<> wrote in message
news:0170f23a-15f5-4a74-94b3-...
>I saw one of these systems the other day, and it certainly attracted
> my interest. Not only is it small and thin, it is also cheaper than a
> Macbook Air. ;-) I could think of some good uses for such a notebook
> computer.
>
> The one I saw was running (and had a good battery) but its owner
> reported occasional thermal shutdown problems. I could see that being
> the result of a dust problem. What really came across as a show
> stopper was the RAM ceiling--apparently this system tops out at 256MB.
>
> Did Dell ever market other models that don't have such a low RAM
> ceiling but do share roughly the same form factor? Or is the 256MB
> limit not necessarily true?
>
> William

Outside Michael Dell's realm, I have an IBM Thinkpad X30, an ultraportable I
like very much, even if it is old (5-6 years) and slow ("only" 1.2GHz). It
weighs about 3 pounds without its docking station that carries an optical drive
and has room for a second battery. Seems to be similar in size to the L400,
perhaps better engineered. I picked up mine secondhand for a song (actuallu 2
arias) when a company was upgrading. But a second one at the same time and
sold it quickly for what I paid for both. It's fine for my occasional
out-of-office use at meetings and in troubleshooting networks.

The current ultraportable Lenovo Thinkpad is the X61. Its precessor is the
X60, and then there were the X40-series models. All are P4s... Ben Myers

On Fri, 8 Feb 2008 09:31:11 -0800 (PST), wrote:

>I saw one of these systems the other day, and it certainly attracted
>my interest. Not only is it small and thin, it is also cheaper than a
>Macbook Air. ;-) I could think of some good uses for such a notebook
>computer.
>
>The one I saw was running (and had a good battery) but its owner
>reported occasional thermal shutdown problems. I could see that being
>the result of a dust problem. What really came across as a show
>stopper was the RAM ceiling--apparently this system tops out at 256MB.
>
>Did Dell ever market other models that don't have such a low RAM
>ceiling but do share roughly the same form factor? Or is the 256MB
>limit not necessarily true?
>
>William

"Eugene" <> wrote in message
news:zpGdncaq3tEYQjHanZ2dnUVZ_g6dnZ2d@wideopenwest .com...
> wrote:
>
>> I saw one of these systems the other day, and it certainly attracted
>> my interest. Not only is it small and thin, it is also cheaper than a
>> Macbook Air. ;-) I could think of some good uses for such a notebook
>> computer.
>>
>> The one I saw was running (and had a good battery) but its owner
>> reported occasional thermal shutdown problems. I could see that being
>> the result of a dust problem. What really came across as a show
>> stopper was the RAM ceiling--apparently this system tops out at 256MB.
>>
>> Did Dell ever market other models that don't have such a low RAM
>> ceiling but do share roughly the same form factor? Or is the 256MB
>> limit not necessarily true?
>>
>> William
>
> the x200 was a small light one and limited to 768M, the c400 was slightly
> larger at 1" thick and supports 1G. It was replaced by the D400 then the
> D4x0 up to the current d430.
> I'm running on a 5 year old c400 now.


Thanks. I knew I'd miss some models.