Dell thinks young and colorful with business notebook refresh
Latitude adjustment
It's been a couple years since Dell last had a major refresh of its Latitude business notebooks. Lo and behold, there's all these young, sleek rivals on the scene these days.
Rather than buy a toupee and flashy car, Dell is re-imagining its Latitude line by mixing some sex appeal from consumer notebooks with a business-friendly feature set designed to appeal to more youthful workers. These young folk are apparently to be known as "Digital Nomads". Shudder with us for a moment, and then we shall speak no more of it.
Announced today are the new Latitude E-family notebooks, ranging from a 12.1in ultra-portable to a 15.4in mainstream laptop.
Stack o' Latitudes
The update makes some notable changes to Dell's traditional case design. Most apparent is that for the first time several Latitude models will be offered in a variety of colors. You're limited to a spectrum of understated, business-like colors with names like "regatta blue" and "regal red" mind you, but colors nonetheless. And the kids love colors.
Dell's also added a stronger metal hinge and latch system — which thankfully still blends with the aesthetic Round Rock desired. In addition, Dell has added features such as a backlit keyboard, built-in touchless RFID SmartCard sensor, built-in fingerprint reader, and a surprising battery life of up to 19 hours. More on that last part later.
COMMENTS
looks ordinary
Young and sleek and fresh... They look new but the same. Nothing special about their appearance.
Fruitlessness
Trying to find any device (of any reasonable size) with a screen that isn't widescreen is becoming an increasingly fruitless task, especially if shopping at the major (DSG-type) retailers.
Widescreen photo-frames are stupid, given that practically no cameras take widescreen images. But try getting anything else at a half-way fair price.
Widescreen desktop monitors that will never go anywhere near video? Going from 5:4 to widescreen will be particularly painful for many. Long may my SyncMaster 191T live on, blotchy display or not.
Widescreen satnav? Specially made for zillion lane superhighways?
Widescreen mp3 player? Like who cares when the picture's still --> <-- so big.
Sure, it's economies of manufacture behind it all, but where's the choice for those who are prepared to pay a little more for the common sense everyday solution?
80x25 Anyone?
Sorry @peter && Chris, but if you worked for me . . .
I had a standing rule in my shop. If the code extends beyond column 80, then you need to break the line., or re-code the expression for clarity. With the exception of a large case statement, any logical block of code that exceeds a single screen of 25 lines should be broken up into smaller functions/sub-routines. This is simply good programming practice for writing maintainable code.
I'm a boolean algebra guru. If I *ever* see an if with an expression that is 256 columns wide, or if I have to think more than 2 seconds on what it says then some programming type is about to get a new *ssh*le.
While one may *read* left to write, one will follow steps top to bottom. Programs are STEPS of instructions, top to start bottom to finish, and each thought should be concise and to the point one step down at a time. The problem is all you kids graduate from college where you've been writing code in a vacuum, and you've never had to actually go back and read some of the sh*t some other PFY wrote 2 years ago and fix something. I can assure you you will not have any trouble following *any* of my code.
And I'm probably going to slug the next little pr*ck that writes something like:
if ( 6 < day_of_week && 20 < hour || 8 > hour and 1 > day_of_week)
again. . .
Very cute, but you made me STOP and THINK about what you were trying to say. If *I* had to stop and think, some other poor slob is going to get lost and mis-interpet the expression
Widescreen is wonderful for accountants with spreadsheets, but if you are writing code off the right hand edge of the screen then you are inately writing code that is extremely difficult to follow. Quit writing essays, and start writing code.
My .02 (tupence?)
@Peter Gathercole
/me types away on his Thinkpad R52 enjoying 1400x1050 of glorious pixels.
I find widescreens are like working whilst looking through a letter box. Give me vertical resolution! If I wanted to waste space on the sides I'd use vista and turn the sidebar on!
I used to have an A30 with the same size screen, there's no going back, using anything less just feels like I'm using a cheap laptop with only 800x600.
It does kind of restrict the choice on new laptops though.
