BarryGrussling.com

Why a Dell D820N

Unfortunately, my Toshiba Satellite 1800-S203 died recently. The high voltage circuit for the display went out, along with other various issues that were driving me nuts. I decided it was time to replace the ~6 year old laptop with something a little more modern.

My requirements were as follows:

• Durable
• Standard enough hardware that Linux will work

The Durability requirement pushed me away from the Inspiron line and toward the Latitude line.
My first desire was the Dell D420. I love its small size and road-warrior abilities. I did some more research into the laptop and discovered some shortcomings:

• 1.8 inch non-standard hard drive
• Lacking optical drive
• Slow overall performance

Honestly, the only thing that killed the 420 for me was the 1.8 inch HD. I don't wanted to get locked into
a platform I can't tinker with. There may be parts available for this laptop, but it definitely isn't as standard as the D820.

I looked at other brands such as the IBM Thinkpad series, but there were priced out of my desired range. I also avoided Toshiba right now after my series of heartache with the 1800.

In the end, it came down to the D620 and the D820. The D620 looks quite capable, and I have nothing against it. I splurged for the D820 after reading tons of review and I decided the D820 was probably a little bit better for my needs, but this is purely a personal choice. I wish I could have used a D620 and a D820 for a while to really understand the size difference.

Next, I was off to purchase my D820. Since I don't have any desire for Windows, I wanted to purchase the laptop without XP or Vista. Dell had just started offering Ubuntu on its laptops, so I considered that, but Dell wasn't offering Ubuntu on this particular laptop.

I price out the laptop on Dells website at least 6 different ways including off the main page, via the kiosk page, via the linux.dell.com page, and via all the various promotional pages. The prices varied greatly (over $450 dollars). In the end, I ordered the laptop via linux.dell.com.

I ordered the following options:

• 15.4 inch Wide Screen WSXGA+ LCD Panel
• 512MB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 1 DIMM
• 512MB NVIDIA(r) Quadro NVS 120M TurboCacheTM
• 80GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 7200RPM
• Standard Touchpad
• Dell Wireless(r) 350 Bluetooth Module
• 8X DVD+/-RW, Data Only
• Intel(r) 3945 802.11a/g Dual-Band Mini Card
• 6 Cell Primary Battery
• D/Port Advanced Port Replicator

I upgraded the laptops memory to 2GB using Crucial memory (CT518519).

It was scheduled to ship on the 29th of June, 2008 (9 days after ordering it). Dell shipped it early on June 23rd, 2008.

I will update this page after I get the laptop and start the system installation.