The Latitude D630 in 2021-Barely a decent Windows laptop... but a great Chromebook

[lboolaka_33]

If you look at my signature, you'll see a "Latitude D630 Chromebook" under the "Laptops" section. While I originally meant to take advantage of the "brunch" project, it wouldn't work on the Latitude. At first, it fully refused to boot, with me eventually finding out that I'd need to add their MBR support patch. Unfortunately, even with the patch, the laptop wouldn't get past an error message that kept coming up. Out of options, I decided to install Neverware's CloudReady ,even though I was trying to avoid it since it's not "real" ChromeOS. This worked without a hitch, both WiFi cards I tested worked without issue, and the brightness controls worked natively, something I had to install f.lux for on Windows 10. But before I get into the ChromeOS experience, let me rewind and talk about the Latitude's hardware.

The Latitude D630 was Dell's 14 inch business laptop offering for 2007. It was the last of the Latitude D line, and it competed with the ThinkPad T61. If you're fimilar with the T61 and its issues, you're also familiar with the D630 (this doesn't quite apply the other way around--I'll get to that later.) The laptop isn't really considered a looker, but I'm personally a fan of the design. It's not as timeless as the T61, but it looks a hell of a lot better than a lot of other devices from the era.

Here's a generic picture of one:

Spoiler

 

Part of the reason I love the laptop so much is the ergonomics. The palmiest is decently comfy, it's the nicest you can get aside from leather, alcantara, or the materials Dell used on future Latitudes and Precisions (the XPS palm rest seems nice as well). Mine has some extra flex because the battery has been removed (it sits right under there). The extended battery has some smart design as well, as it extends out of the front, therefore giving the user more palmrest area. (Fun fact, I used to think this was a module put on "enhanced editions" of the laptop that allowed it to run Windows 7.) The keyboard is pretty good for a laptop, it may not be ThinkPad level, but it has a great amount of travel. (In fact, I'd say the lack of response is the only reason I see it as lower than the ThinkPad's board). This isn't very important, but there's a great feel to the hinge and battery latches as well. On the flip side, however, is the display. It's certainly not the greatest, but it's not terrible for it's time, either. The 16:10 aspect ratio is nice, I'm exited for it's return on newer laptops. My example has a lot of dead pixels and dust trapped in it, maybe I'll take it apart for repair some day... The touchpad is also pretty bad, but are you surprised by that? At least it has a TrackPoint, though I really wish it had a middle scroll button for it. I currently have a low profile ThinkPad variant installed, I really need to buy the OEM part next time I make an eBay or Amazon order as it's not a good fit. The missing battery and wrong-size TrackPoint are the least of my D630's problems (hence the title), but that's hardly its fault. I take 100% of the blame for everything wrong (except for the chipped battery housing and display issues). The laptop is really durable in general, aside from dGPU models which suffered from a widespread issue that affected more than just Dell laptops...

Unfortunately, this laptop has not received the same fanfare as the T61, meaning mods similar to Middleton's BIOS are not available. This means you are limited to SATA speeds and don't have access to higher end chips like the Core 2 Quad series (though I've see someone get a 1066 MHz FSB CPU in one of these by hiring someone to do a BIOS mod... maybe I'll look into this some day). This is why I say Latitude D630 owners may not be fully familiar with the T61, as the latter has much more of a following.

 

Before I get on to the ChromeOS part of the review, let me go over this systems specs and Windows 10 experience.

It currently has 4GB of DDR2 RAM (poached from my/my fathers old MacBook Pro which could only take advantage of 3GB). It can take 8GB on the latest BIOS (I think x61 ThinkPads need the Middleton mod for this), but the SODIMMs required cost much more than it's worth spending. The CPU is a Core 2 Duo T7500, and graphics are rendered by an iGPU. The drive is a 7200 RPM 500GB Seagate model taken from a Latitude E5450, and before people get mad at me for judging performance on W10 with an HDD, I'm going to mention that I have in fact tested one. And it wasn't really any faster. Windows 10 is usable, but things crash and burn once you get past text based browsing. I couldn't even get Steam to open, and a 2D platformer called Pizza Tower (check it out if you are a fan of the Wario Land games) ran like shit.

 

This all changes on ChromeOS. The laptop can now handle web games, and YouTube can run in HD! Browsing is much faster, and for simple tasks I couldn't really notice a difference between this laptop and my Acer Spin 15. I would seriously recommend it if you have an old laptop and want a lightweight OS without much hassle, and I will be installing it (maybe not the CloudReady version) on my next laptop so I can say "no, this is a Chromebook!" when confronted by teachers at school. If you don't want to use ChromeOS/CloudReady, but you have an old system, at least consider a lightweight Linux distro. I consider Windows to be a fine OS, but it really doesn't play well with low end hardware, despite supporting it.

 

TL;DR: The D630 is an old laptop with good ergonomics that looks better than most of its piers, aside from the ThinkPad T61, which also has much more of a modding community around it. Despite that, the D630 is still a decent laptop for light work, especially once you install a lightweight OS (like ChromeOS) on it.

 

Also, don't buy one of these for more than $30-40! I'd honestly recommend the T61 over this (again, not worth more than $30-40), but I'm glad that I had the opportunity to own this laptop. I certainly wouldn't have gone out of my way to get one of these, and that would have been a mistake. If you already own ThinkPads, this could be a good change of pace.

Spoiler

https://www.dell.com/downloads/ap/products/latit/LAT_D630c_SA_0108.pdf

My D630:

Spoiler

 

[LloydLynx]

Nice. I have a D620, which is basically the same thing but with an IR sensor instead of a firewire port. This laptop series got me addicted to trackpoints. I use a thinkpad nowadays, but it has a bad stuttering defect that I have yet to solve. The Dell has a pretty great trackpoint, but yeah, I really wish it had a middle button. I have two D620s, one is a pretty low spec 32 bit model running an ancient installation of Windows 7 that was my first ever computer, and I have a different much higher spec one (Nvidia unfortunately) that I got because I loved the D620 series so much at the time, right now it's running Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. I kick myself for buying the Nvidia "upgrade", not only for the reliability issues, but also no modern OS has support for that chip so it's forever damned to running really old operating systems. I wonder how ChromeOS would handle that Nshitia Quadcrap chip, if it would even work at all. Note: Mods, I'm crapping on this chip in particular, not Nvidia as a whole

[lboolaka_33]

27 minutes ago, LloydLynx said:

Nice. I have a D620, which is basically the same thing but with an IR sensor instead of a firewire port. This laptop series got me addicted to trackpoints. I use a thinkpad nowadays, but it has a bad stuttering defect that I have yet to solve. The Dell has a pretty great trackpoint, but yeah, I really wish it had a middle button. I have two D620s, one is a pretty low spec 32 bit model running an ancient installation of Windows 7 that was my first ever computer, and I have a different much higher spec one (Nvidia unfortunately) that I got because I loved the D620 series so much at the time, right now it's running Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. I kick myself for buying the Nvidia "upgrade", not only for the reliability issues, but also no modern OS has support for that chip so it's forever damned to running really old operating systems. I wonder how ChromeOS would handle that Nshitia Quadcrap chip, if it would even work at all. Note: Mods, I'm crapping on this chip in particular, not Nvidia as a whole

I didn't know the D620 had an IR sensor, that's interesting. I agree that the Dell could have really used a middle button, I think they finally got that down with the introduction of the E series. It's a shame about the Nvidia chip, I didn't know they had compatibility issues on top of the reliability problems. I doubt ChromeOS would work with it, but it may be worth a shot. If you haven't, maybe try adding a copper shim to the heat sink so the GPU doesn't fail?

I'm interested in trying out the D830 sometimes, but the D620 would be interesting as well. I just wish these laptops (and the Latitude line as a whole) had more of a following.

[LloydLynx]

1 minute ago, Dr. Kaloob said:

If you haven't, maybe try adding a copper shim to the heat sink so the GPU doesn't fail?

Already taken care of, lol. I spent about 15 minutes bending the heatpipes just right so I could use thermal paste instead of thermal pads. It never goes above 60C and holds steady at 50C under normal usage. The IR sensor is great, I used it to transfer data when I got the new D620.

For a time, the D830 was my dream laptop(I can only imagine how good those upward stereo speakers must be), that is before I learned about the wonders of the Thinkpad world. These D series really are underrated though.

[lboolaka_33]

21 minutes ago, LloydLynx said:

Already taken care of, lol. I spent about 15 minutes bending the heatpipes just right so I could use thermal paste instead of thermal pads. It never goes above 60C and holds steady at 50C under normal usage. The IR sensor is great, I used it to transfer data when I got the new D620.

For a time, the D830 was my dream laptop(I can only imagine how good those upward stereo speakers must be), that is before I learned about the wonders of the Thinkpad world. These D series really are underrated though.

Nice, hopefully that Quadro won't crap out.

The ThinkPads have also diverted my attention away from the Latitude line, and I'd probably grab a T61 before a D830. That said, I think the whole Latitude/Precision lineup is slept on (minus the Latitude 3000 and Precision 5000 series). They have some real advantages over ThinkPads. It's a shame they're moving away from the TrackPoint (though I think you can swap the trackpoint on to the current generation Latitudes). 

 

[LloydLynx]

1 minute ago, Dr. Kaloob said:

They have some real advantages over ThinkPads.

Ooo, like what? Anything Linux related because that's kinda a big deal for me?

[lboolaka_33]

4 minutes ago, LloydLynx said:

Ooo, like what? Anything Linux related because that's kinda a big deal for me?

Well, they officially supported Ubuntu well before Lenovo started supporting RedHat. 

I've noticed that their laptops generally have better speakers and displays than ThinkPads. The webcam and mic setup on my Latitude 5591 was really good as well. 

I personally like the way ThinkPads look, but the Latitudes definitely have a more modern feel to them, if that matters to you.

You can typically find them for less $ than their ThinkPad counterparts as well.  

Finally, if you were a fan of the T4xxp models, the Latitude 54x1 line is a spiritual successor. The 55x1 is a good replacement for the old T4xxp models as well.  

Sorry about the bad formatting of this reply.