Longer answer - The X200 vs X300 is the same physical size but the ONLY common elements as far as I can tell is the battery! The X300 vs X200 docking slices uses different size slice connectors. The media bays in the slice are different. The power supply is different. I don't understand WHY is has to change yet again!!! (this was after being told that they were all common by the Dell sales rep.....). The X300 slice only has a single media bay (you can't run Floppy & CDRW / extra HDD at the same time). The media slice also take the second battery - which is good, but at a high cost for everything else.....
FrustratedKiwi....... (Currently fightening with DOS drivers and X300 for ghosting)
A couple of updates now that I've used the X300 for a little while. Firstly, I was wrong about the batteries. They are different between the X200 and the X300, therefore I can find NO common components between the X200 and X300.
The better news is I've now found out that the X300 uses the same power supplies and disk modules as the current D series laptops. Not much use for my company (we standardised on X200's) but probably better for most people.
Having used the X300 for a while, it seems pretty good. The battery life with WiFi running and the second battery in the docking slice, I get a good 2.5 hours of real use and if I dim the screen and disable WiFi another 30-60+ mins.
Speed is fast enough, but I'm primarily Word, Excel, Outlook. I am also running MySQL and Apache without problems as a local web server.
Booting DOS drivers / network drivers was a bit of a challenge, until I found out exact models of GBit card. Some strange dependancies where it would crash loading XMS drivers if the Floppy Drive wasn't plugged in. Very weried but got it to ghost eventually.
Overall summary: The X200 was doing the job I needed of it without a problem. The X300 is a little faster, new bigger better. The change of all external parts / fittings to a new standard is frustrating for us but may not be such an issue for larger companies.
confusedKiwi
3 Posts
0
November 9th, 2003 16:00
Short answer NO -
.
Longer answer - The X200 vs X300 is the same physical size but the ONLY common elements as far as I can tell is the battery! The X300 vs X200 docking slices uses different size slice connectors. The media bays in the slice are different. The power supply is different. I don't understand WHY is has to change yet again!!! (this was after being told that they were all common by the Dell sales rep.....). The X300 slice only has a single media bay (you can't run Floppy & CDRW / extra HDD at the same time). The media slice also take the second battery - which is good, but at a high cost for everything else.....
FrustratedKiwi....... (Currently fightening with DOS drivers and X300 for ghosting)
gdoes
37 Posts
0
January 25th, 2004 15:00
Seems like you got your hands on both units and was wondering if you can compare the two for us?
-Glenn
confusedKiwi
3 Posts
0
January 26th, 2004 07:00
Hi,
A couple of updates now that I've used the X300 for a little while. Firstly, I was wrong about the batteries. They are different between the X200 and the X300, therefore I can find NO common components between the X200 and X300.
The better news is I've now found out that the X300 uses the same power supplies and disk modules as the current D series laptops. Not much use for my company (we standardised on X200's) but probably better for most people.
Having used the X300 for a while, it seems pretty good. The battery life with WiFi running and the second battery in the docking slice, I get a good 2.5 hours of real use and if I dim the screen and disable WiFi another 30-60+ mins.
Speed is fast enough, but I'm primarily Word, Excel, Outlook. I am also running MySQL and Apache without problems as a local web server.
Booting DOS drivers / network drivers was a bit of a challenge, until I found out exact models of GBit card. Some strange dependancies where it would crash loading XMS drivers if the Floppy Drive wasn't plugged in. Very weried but got it to ghost eventually.
Overall summary: The X200 was doing the job I needed of it without a problem. The X300 is a little faster, new bigger better. The change of all external parts / fittings to a new standard is frustrating for us but may not be such an issue for larger companies.
Hope that is of use,
Regards,
Carl
gdoes
37 Posts
0
January 26th, 2004 11:00
Carl:
Thanks for the valuable info...a review from an actual user!
-Glenn