X-bit labs

A True American: Dell Latitude D620 Notebook Review (page 5)

Category: Mobile

by Alexander Britvin

[ 12/07/2007 | 10:40 AM ]

In the top left corner of the silver bezel around the keyboard there are (from left to right):

• Num Lock indicator
• Caps Lock indicator
• Scroll Lock indicator
• Two buttons to adjust the sound volume
• Mute button
• Power button that turns the notebook on

Right above the keyboard indicators, at the bottom of the screen bezel, there is a built-in light sensor I’ve mentioned above. It measures the brightness of ambient lighting and the screen backlight intensity is adjusted accordingly. You can configure the sensor through the QuickSet program. Note also that this feature works only with the notebook’s own display but does not affect the external monitor if you attach one to the notebook.

Now let’s see what interfaces and connectors the notebook offers. You can find the following on its left panel (from left to right):

• Kensington security slot
• Headphones output
• Microphone input
• IrDA port
• Smart-card slot
• WLAN On/Off slider together with an activity indicator
• PC Card connector (for one card of type I or II) with an eject button

• Hard disk drive guides

The WLAN slider has three positions: Off, On, and Searching. The Wi-Fi indicator works like this:

• Blinking green: searching for WLANs
• Shining green: found a WLAN with a strong signal
• Shining yellow: found a WLAN with a weak signal
• Blinking yellow: error
• Not shining: no networks founds

On the notebook’s right panel there is only an optical drive with an activity indicator, eject button and emergency ejection hole (this bay may also accommodate a Dell TravelLite module, an additional hard disk or a battery), a special lock for extracting the drive from its bay, and two USB 2.0 ports.

The following can be found on the notebook’s rear panel:

• LAN port (RJ-45)
• Modem port (RJ-11)
• Two USB 2.0 ports
• 9-pin COM port
• 15-pin D-Sub connector for an external monitor
• Power connector