Product Reviews

Dell has come closer than most to perfecting the art of the business notebook, with the A-List slots for both Business and Ultraportable notebooks currently occupied by the Dell Latitude D620 and D420 respectively. But when it comes to ruggedised notebooks, we'd be more likely to look at companies such as Panasonic with its Toughbook range or Itronix.

The ATG in the name stands for All Terrain Grade, which is more of a marketing term than anything particularly meaningful, with the rest of the name giving away the ATG's heritage - the chassis is the same as the original D620's with a few key tweaks. The screen hinges have been replaced with hard-wearing steel, and the screen back is made from magnesium alloy. Dell also claims the LCD has been "shock mounted" and, no matter how hard we pressed the back of the panel, the display never showed the bruising we'd expect on notebook screens. Usefully, the ATG also shares its core specifications with D620, which means you can use the same disc image on both.

The ATG also complies with a few of the strict MIL-STD 810F standards for vibration, humidity, altitude and dust. There's an inspiring build quality throughout the chassis, although there are no official claims for either water or drop resistance, while some of the port protection on the ATG leaves something to be desired. The ports on the rear are protected by a rubberised plastic guard that we could never get to sit perfectly flush against the chassis. The USB ports on the right-hand side of the chassis enjoy slightly better protection from a tighter-fitting grommet, but it's completely detachable and hence easily lost. The optical drive is a non-ruggedised Dell component - pull it out of the chassis and you can see daylight through gaps in the casing. The PC Card slot is also unprotected.

But Dell is keen to point out that the ATG is only semi-ruggedised, and when it comes to shock protection there's little

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doubt that the laptop will survive some serious tumbles. The hard disk, in spite of sitting in a standard 2.5in slot, is actually a 1.8in Seagate model with a capacity of 80GB. The rest of the drive bay is taken up with a rubberised shock absorber to protect the disk in the event of calamity. The ATG has also been through all of Dell's standard laptop testing, which is far from easy in itself.

In keeping with the ATG's outdoors credentials, the 14.1in 1,280 x 800 TFT is incredibly bright, and we certainly had no problems seeing the screen in bright daylight. Dell has also included what it calls Task Lights - a pair of red LEDs integrated into the top of the TFT bezel, which light the keyboard effectively.

The ATG also manages to offer good performance, something often lacking from ruggedised laptops. The Latitude is powered by a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 with 1GB of RAM to keep everything running smoothly. The ATG also enjoys a slight performance boost courtesy of Windows XP, scoring 1.06 overall in our application benchmarks. Should you wish to use Windows Vista, you can specify an upgrade to Business Edition. Usefully, the laptop includes an HSDPA adapter as well as a Vodafone SIM card for 3.5G broadband access.

Battery life needs to be good on a notebook designed for the great outdoors, but the small six-cell battery that Dell supplies powered the ATG for only 2hrs 25mins under intensive use and 3hrs 59mins under light use. This SKU (use E-Value code MAG-A620 PCP to order) skirts the problem by also including a nine-cell battery, which ran our light-use test for 5hrs 58mins, and our intensive-use test for 3hrs 38mins. It's a respectable total, particularly when you combine the two timings, but it's worth remembering that the Dell ATG's total travelling weight is heavy. In everyday use, the ATG is definitely no ultraportable - 3kg with the small battery compared to 2.4kg for the original D620. The laptop, plus both batteries and the power supply produce a final weight of nearly 4kg. Taking the ATG with you may well mean sacrificing other kit.

Dell's first effort at a rugged notebook is a qualified success. It's certainly well built, and in spite of the lack of official statistics we're happy it will stand up to far more abuse than the average notebook. It's debatable whether its semi-rugged status will truly allow it to be used for mission-critical applications, but the price is appealing. And if you simply want a laptop that will last for thousands of miles, the ATG fits the bill.