Great Road Warrior
I have had this D420 for 2 years and it has never failed me no matter what. I take it every day to college. And to get to my school I commute in the crowded NY subway for 1 hour one-way! I also take it when I travel. So far it has been in London (UK) Moscow (Russia) and twice in Kiev (Ukraine).
This computer is very thin and weights only 3 lb. It has the magnesium-alloy frame and high-quality plastic outer shell. It is really rugged and rigid - no flex whatsoever. It has withstood the beating very well - there are practically no marks or scratches after 2 years.
My laptop came with Core Solo U1300 1.06GHz processor 1.5GB of RAM and Windows XP Pro. The system is very stable - never had any problems with it. I installed AVG antivirus Windows Defender and Win Patrol HIPS. With all this running I am able to use MS Word 2007 MS Excel 2007 Firefox (several tabs open) and Media Player at the same time with relative ease. I usually surf Internet watch YouTube or Hulu and do light photo editing with XNView. With an external DVD drive I watch movies and rip CDs. Also I work with Word PowerPoint and Excel every day. I even do some occasional gaming (WarCraft 3 runs smoothly on medium settings!) But do not expect this laptop to be lightning-fast. And do not try to play Crysis! This computer takes its time at the start-up (nothing too big though) and when opening multiple apps.
The computer is very power-efficient. The battery lasts for several hours and easily gets me through my day in college. The wireless card works just fine. I use it to connect to my campus network. At my home I use wired DSL modem via the network card - no problems here either. When I went to Russia and Ukraine I used the built-in dial-up modem - worked like charm. There is a slot for a Cellular HSDPA modem - never used it. I like the SD Card slot - use it a lot. The speaker is really tiny but I use external speakers or headphones for music. The keyboard is really comfortable. I have had something like a dozen laptops and I think that d420 has one of the best keyboards I have seen so far. The touchpad is good too though I usually use a wireless mouse.
To extend connectivity and avoid plugging and unplugging numerous cords every day I bought a Dell Media Base with built-in DVDRW drive. Now my DSL modem speakers printer and power cord are constantly connected to the Base and the d420 sits on top of it. This also allowed me to move all the cords to the back so they do not get in the way.
Long story short: I am really happy with it - highly recommended. You can also find very good reviews of this laptop on notebookreview and notebookcheck.More detail ...
