Dell's new Latitude D400 series is one of the fastest, best-looking, and most affordable Pentium M ultraportables on the market. We recently tested the speediest version of the Dell 310-4408 90W Slim AC Adapter Charger, featuring a 1.7GHz Pentium M processor. The new model is slightly faster than the 1.3GHz version we tested, and it does have longer battery life. But its battery life still trails the scores posted by competing notebooks. Nevertheless, the Dell 310-6325 90W Slim AC Adapter Charger offers an impressive array of wireless options, ranging from standard 802.11b, which can make this a true Centrino notebook, to various combinations of 802.11a, b, and g. Businesses will also like the built-in smart-card reader, and everyone should appreciate the low starting price.
The D400 stretches the definition to the extreme and is perhaps only called an ultra portable because there's no integrated optical drive. This in itself is quite a disappointment, especially considering its 30mm-thick chassis. Comparatively, the IBM ThinkPad T40 is also 30mm thick yet squeezes a DVD-ROM and CD-RW combo drive into the chassis, although the T40 weighs 2.25kg against the D400's 1.8kg. Instead, Dell 310-6557 90W Slim AC Adapter Charger, the D400 has a USB 2 external combo drive, which might offer a fast 24x/10x/24x CD-RW and 8x DVD-ROM, but still takes up much more space in the end.

Once you add the external drive and a Dell 310-4002 90W Slim AC Adapter Charger, you're looking at a travel weight of 2.77kg. The D400's dimensions, however, are standard for a business-class ultraportable: 29.4cm wide, 24.5cm deep and 2.66cm thick. To add external drives, the Latitude D400 uses Dell's D/Bay, which is a powered USB 2.0 module. This makes connecting an optical drive simple because it eliminates the need for an additional Dell 310-3149 90W Slim AC Adapter Charger, but it does mean that you'll use up one of your two USB 2.0 ports in the process. BatteryMark 4.01 recorded an uptime of 2 hours and 41 minutes in desktop mode, although this could easily be boosted to over three hours by adjusting the screen brightness and Dell 310-7251 90W Slim AC Adapter Charger management settings. You'll need to carry a spare battery if you want a full day's work away from a source of mains Dell 310-3399 90W Slim AC Adapter Charger.