The Good Reasonable price; sturdy, well-designed case; strong performance; cutting-edge components, including an Intel Core Duo processor; comprehensive communications and security features, such as an EV-DO WWAN card and fingerprint sensor; fantastic service and support policy. The Bad Small mouse buttons when configured with a fingerprint sensor. The Bottom Line The new Latitude D820 covers just about every base that a great business laptop can, clearing the way for us to call it one of the best midsize corporate portables around. Visit for details. Compared to its predecessor, the Dell Latitude D820 looks like it's been on Weight Watchers-and we love the results. This corporate system weighs a half-pound less than the laptop it replaces, the, making it sleeker and markedly more portable.
Yet the Latitude D820 offers everything the prior version did and more, including a crisp, 15.4-inch wide screen; an processor; and cutting-edge options such as integrated wireless WAN and biometric security. In addition, the D820 runs about 30 percent faster than the D810; indeed, it's one of the fastest Core Duo machines we've seen to date.
Even its battery life is above average (though not as long as that of another of our corporate laptop favorites, the ). Any way you slice it, the Latitude D820 is a terrific choice for businesses seeking a powerful, well-rounded portable for occasional travel.
While the 7-pound Latitude D810 was more of a, the 6.5-pound D820 approaches the more portable territory. The D820 is also about 0.3 inch thinner than the D810, putting the D820's overall dimensions at 1.4 inches thick, 14.2 inches wide, and 10.3 inches deep.
Still, the D820 is the largest system in the Latitude lineup, with the closest runner-up being the 6.1-pound. Though the D820 is also slightly larger than the ThinkPad T60 and the, it's about the same size as the 6.6-pound.
All in all, the Latitude D820 may not be the lightest laptop around, but it's not so burdensome that semifrequent fliers shouldn't consider making it their travel companion. The Latitude D820 demonstrates best-in-business laptop design, beginning with its broad, comfortable keyboard that's complemented by a pointing stick and a touch pad, both with their own sets of mouse buttons. If you configure your D820 with biometric security, Dell reduces the size of the mouse buttons to accommodate a fingerprint sensor between them; while we appreciate the sensor option, the accompanying buttons may be too small for big fingers to use comfortably. Three handy buttons for volume up, volume down, and mute lie above the keyboard, while the two mediocre-sounding speakers (typical for a corporate laptop) flank the board on either side. The system also features a crisp, 15.4-inch wide screen with an ultrafine, 1,900x1,200 that renders graphics in good detail but makes for tiny text.
The screen is anchored to the D820's base by very sturdy steel hinges, and the entire internal frame consists of strong magnesium alloy. In addition, the hard drive offers shock protection, meant to shield the drive from accidental bumps and drops. Many of these fab features are also be found in the -focused, which offers a smaller 14.1-inch wide screen and nice touches that the business-minded D820 lacks, such as arrow keys that double as multimedia controls.
Oct 12, 2014 - I have a Dell Latitude D820 with Windows XP Pro Service Pack 3. The drivers necessary to allow my laptop to find wi-fi with Ubuntu or Mint.
Another area in which the Latitude D820 excels is wireless networking. For starters, the case incorporates a switch on its left edge that functions like a: slide the switch to the right, and the built-in 802.11 wireless card automatically searches for available networks, alerting you to the presence of those networks by illuminating the LED status light next to the switch. Since this feature works whether the system itself is turned on or off, it will come in extrahandy for those who don't want to boot up unless they can get online. Other networking options include wireless WAN and integrated, latest-generation Bluetooth + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate). The Latitude D820 doesn't offer an overabundance of ports, jacks, and slots, but its collection is expansive enough to handle most office tasks.
You get a four-pin FireWire (which was lacking in the D810), VGA, infrared, serial, and four USB 2.0 ports (one of which is half USB port and half power jack, letting you run peripherals such as Dell's USB external hard drive); 56Kbps modem, Gigabit Ethernet, and microphone jacks; and one slot each for Type II PC Cards, and Smart Cards, the last of which can store passwords and other sensitive information. Along those security lines, the D820 also incorporates a chip. While a more consumer-oriented laptop would incorporate multimedia features such as S-Video, S/PDIF audio, a media card reader, and more USB ports, the D820's selection is appropriate for a business user. We evaluated a high-end version of the Latitude D820 that costs $2,290-a good value for such top-notch components, including a top-of-the-line 2.16GHz Intel T2600 Core Duo processor, 1GB of blazing 666MHz DDR2 SDRAM, a big 100GB hard drive rotating at 5,400rpm, a swappable DVD burner, and a cutting-edge Nvidia Quadro NVS 120M graphics chip that has 256MB of dedicated VRAM and borrows another 256MB from main memory. The ThinkPad Z60t costs $300 less and offers the same hard drive capacity though several lesser specs (previous-generation Pentium M processor, slower 533MHz memory, and integrated Intel 915GM graphics). In, the Latitude D820's new parts catapulted the the system's SysMark performance 30 percent beyond that of the prior-generation D810 and past the scores earned by most of the Core Duo laptops we've tested to date (only the scored significantly higher). The Latitude D820 can easily handle any business task you throw at it and will likely succeed with most entertainment applications as well.
We suspect the D820's high display resolution took a slight toll on the system's battery life, though: while the laptop still lasted a very respectable 4 hours, 51 minutes, the similar-size battery on the ThinkPad T60, which features a lower screen resolution, held out for almost 6 hours. Still, the newly portable Latitude D820 now has enough battery life for decent excursions away from the socket. The Latitude D820's three-year warranty is the industry standard for a business system, but Dell includes onsite repairs by the next business day-something that costs extra from other vendors. Dell's comprehensive support Web site is also among the best in the business, offering troubleshooting info, downloads, a customer forum, real-time chatting with a tech-support rep, and more.
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I have a new Dell Latitude D820 laptop. I've installed at&t communication manager and I'm using a Sierra Wireless 875 AirCard. I can pick up a signal and connect. It shows that bytes are being sent & received. However, when I click on Internet Explorer, it opens and the status bar at the bottom of the window says that the page was found, but I get a blue screen before the page ever loads.
It contains the Stop error 0x000000F4. I've ran all Windows Updates. I've updated the BIOS. I've tried Internet Explorer 6 and 7.
I've tried using 3G Watcher software before I installed the at&t software with the same results (I uninstalled 3G Watcher before I installed the at&t software). It seems like there is a problem between the software and Internet Explorer, but I can't figure out what it is. I have tried this card on an older Dell Latitude with the 3G Watcher software and I was able to connect without any problems.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks for the info. I did get rid of communication manager via add/remove programs. I've been trying to use 3G Watcher as well and I still get the blue screen. I think it has something to do with the operating system.
Maybe there is a hotfix for the issue I'm having? I've disabled the Dell wireless internal aircard thinking that it was interfering with the Sierra aircard but it still didn't help.
I've tried everything I can think of and it's very frustrating! Try using no connection manager at all, just plain old dial up networking. If there is still a problem, then it's a driver issue.
I have the same problem. I disabled the smart card reader. It did NOT help. I uninstalled the CCM. It did NOT help. I have gone 'round and 'round with this issue and have just about given up. HOWEVER - this is weird - when in '3G' mode it has worked fine.
But when in '2G' mode it blue screens. HOW DO I FIX THIS????? A friend got an 875 U Express card; we have identical computers. Identical problems.
And when he uses the 875U express card he no longer gets a blue screen in either 3g or 2g. Now, can someone explain that to me?????? I also tried to disable the smart card reader and it did NOT help. I gave up on this card. I was able to test a Sierra 860 AirCard and it worked great.
I installed the software and it worked immediately. Unfortunately, they do not sell this card anymore since Sierra has declared end of life for this product. Even if you can find this card, Sierra is only going to support the card for so long and then you're on your own, so why bother? I think we're going to look into the Option GT Max 3.6 AirCard. Finally after months of trying to get a wireless aircard to work in our Latitude D820, we figured it out.
The only thing we could get to work with this laptop is Communication Manager 5.5 and the Option GT Max 3.6 AirCard and BIOS version A07. Actually, our laptops came with BIOS version A04 and we updated it to A07. It still didn't work with the card & software. I spoke to Dell and they replaced the motherboard (under warranty).
It came with BIOS version A05 and we updated to A07 and it worked with the card & software. I don't know what the difference is between BIOS version A04 and A05, but it made a difference with Communication Manager 5.5 and the Option GT Max 3.6 card. I hope that helps anyone else who was having issues.