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Latitude XT first impressions
Unfortunately I had a few meetings and other tasks to get to this morning so it took me a while to get some time with the machine. I made a Ghost image of the hard drive before I even did the first boot – good suggestion for anyone getting a new box.
But image done I now have had a chance to get the box up and running. My primary machine is a Dell Latitude D630 with a snappy SATA hard drive, 4GB of RAM, etc. According to Vista’s Experience Rating my machine is a 4.0 (not bad for a laptop).
The Latitude XT has a 5400rpm ATA hard drive which I was bummed to hear about at first since I’m losing transfer speed, etc. I was quite surprised to see the Experience Rating of the tablet is a 3.5 however. Not too shabby!
Typing seems pretty normal for the current Latitude keyboards so that’s nice. This is still a standard factory build so all the Google stuff is on there indexing and thrashing the drive – thanks. Still, everything seems pretty snappy so far. Might have to take this baby home and play with it some.
I’ve got a trip for a week-plus next week so I want to see if I can get happy enough with the box to take it with me. Sure would be nice to watch a movie on the tablet on the plane … good test of battery life that would be too. This has the 6-cell battery.
I’ll keep you all posted as I spend more time … for now I need to get my last expense report of 2007 in!
Dell Latitude XT Tablet!!!
Update: Also see my other Latitude XT posts: first impressions, more thoughts, and the verdict.
Looks like my firm is one of the first to get Dell’s new tablet! So for all of you out there wanting to see it, here are some pictures next to a Lenovo X61T tablet. The Dell is a widescreen so it’s a bit shorter and wider, and the Lenovo I am playing with has an extended battery hanging off the back.
Next comes making a factory image of it so I can get back to default, and an actual build and test. Might keep it if the performance is halfway decent. 🙂
Update: Welcome Engadget readers! And I was remiss to not shout out a special thanks to my good friend Barton who is lending me the Thinkpad. Also be sure to check for my other posts as I get more acquainted with the Latitude XT.
Kaitlyn says…
Kaitlyn is TOTALLY into princess mode at this point in her life, and has been for a couple months. Every nice dress someone has on (be it a baby or a grown woman) is a princess dress. She even asked Santa for a “Princess Christmas”, which he delivered.
Kaitlyn is also in question mode. Most things we say to her usually get sent right back to us with her cute little questioning voice inflexion.
“Time to get in the car Kaitlyn.” -> “Time to get in the car?”
KC from time to time will ask if I’m a princess, or if Mommy is a princess – both answers are no. We’re king and queen of course! [Which inevitably leads to a question from her inquiring if I’m a queen – but I digress.]
This morning when we were packing into the car for the family commute into Bellevue KC asked if Alicea was a princess, to which Mommy replied that she was a queen. I piped in that Mommy is in fact a domestic goddess.
KC: “Mommy’s a messed up goddess?”
🙂 Had to share. Enjoy your day!
Merry Christmas!
“Merry Christmas, everyone.”
I hope each one of you (that’s right, all three of you that read my blog) had an awesome Christmas. Here at our place we’ve been completely overwhelmed with family, food, and fantastic gifts!
Kaitlyn’s been bouncing off the walls, almost literally, with all the “princess Christmas” gifts she got from Santa and all our relatives. Favorites include a Cinderella doll and a fairy princess dress, complete with wings. I’ve never seen Kaitlyn so happy, jumping and spinning and yelling with each gift she got to open. Too fun.
The highlight of non-Kaitlyn presents has to be the video conferencing system I got so my folks can see Kaitlyn (and she can see them) during our weekly calls. I think my mom flipped over that one. 🙂
But the best gift for everyone this year is that my parents are here for the holidays. Kaitlyn totally latched on to my dad, aka Poppy, and they’ve been spending most of their days in the play room together. It’s awesome to have them here, and they’re in town through Saturday to boot! YAY!
Coming up this afternoon and evening is a great meal (Honey Baked Ham – oh yeah) and some SNOW! WOOHOO!
Let it snow!
Oh yeah. That’s right. I said SNOW!
I love snow – have ever since I was a little kid. And it wasn’t because I didn’t want to go to school (I liked school); but I love being out in the snow.
Now that I’m grown up it’s still magical. Sure I need to shovel the driveway. Sure it’s a pain in the arse to put on chains. Sure there are lots of idiots out there who don’t know how to act in the snow. But it’s still fun!
It started snowing about 2p yesterday afternoon while we were in North Bend doing some shopping. Kaitlyn loved seeing the snowing coming down. As an added bonus we got to see the “Santa Train” on the move as we were driving home in the blowing snow. Now if that doesn’t say “Happy Holidays” I don’t know what does!
Unfortunately Kaitlyn was up through the afternoon so she didn’t go down for her nap until about 3:45p. We woke her up about 7p so we could go outside in the snow for a bit. It was still snowing and Kaitlyn loved walking around in the falling snow (there was about 3-4 inches on the ground) and looking at all the Christmas lights. It was blowing hard though, so it was pretty cold. We didn’t stay out for long.
Now through all this I kept looking at the weather reports, etc. (yes, I admit I’m a weather geek) because I am drumming this weekend at church. So I was trying to decide whether to drive to Bellevue Saturday night and crash on someone’s couch, or sleep in my own bed and slog it in the morning. I finally decided on the latter.
This morning at 4:30a I woke up and peeked out the window … there’s 10-12 inches of snow on the ground – much higher in drifts and were our city’s plow drivers decide to leave their deposits. Why can’t these guys clear out the entrances to the alleys?!? After a few minutes of maneuvering to get out of our driveway I had to blow through a 2+ foot snow bank at the end of our alley. GRR.
Anyway, I made it in just fine. And it’s still snowing up there. LOVELY! Here’s the view from our front room this morning.
I wonder how much more snow will fall today before it changes to rain. Then comes flooding over the next few days with a couple more storms coming in from the Pacific. Oh – and don’t forget the expected wind storm. Tis the season!
Nathan's Occasional Blog 