• Dell's D series of Latitude laptops are perhaps some of the most well-known and popular models in the world of business computing. Made for heavy use and frequent travel, Dell designs its D series laptops for ease of carry, durability and high performance with business applications. The D630 model carries on the tradition with options like solid state drives, password protected hard drives, and a relatively lightweight yet sturdy magnesium-alloy body.
  
  

Operating Systems

• The D630 comes pre-loaded with one of five Windows operating systems: Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, Vista Business, Vista Ultimate and Windows XP Home. The D630 is compatible with Windows 7, but Dell does not offer that version on this model.
  
  

Processor

• Dell's Latitude D630 comes with processors of up to 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) in dual-core speed. The top-performing processor for this model is the Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 with 4 megabytes (MB) cache and a 800 megahertz (MHz) front-side bus speed.
  
  

Display

• The D630 sports a 14.1-inch screen, a typical size for business-class laptops. This model comes with one of two different screen options: Wide eXtended Graphics Array (WXGA) at 768p with a 1280 by 800 pixel resolution or Wide eXtended Graphics Array Plus (WXGA+) display at 864p with a 1440 by 900 pixel resolution. Both of these wide-screen displays are backed by either Intel's on-board Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 or the NVIDIA Quadro NVS 135M graphics chipset. Both options give up to 256 MB of video memory, more than enough for most day to day business computing.
  
  

RAM

• Up to 4 GB of dual-channel Double Data Rate 2 (DDR2) Random Access Memory (RAM) is available on the D630. The memory runs at 667 MHz--also known as PC2-5300. There are two memory slots on the Latitude D630, both of them user-accessible from an easily removed back panel. Dell advertised that the D630's "mainstream user" only needs about 1 GB of RAM, while the "performance professional user" needs only about 2 GB of RAM. However, as the D630 is already a few years old, RAM needs have changed. At least 2 GB of RAM is needed to run Vista or Windows 7 (if you upgrade to that version) quickly and efficiently, but 4 GB will still give you solid performance.
  
  

Drives

• The D630 comes with stock with up to a 160 GB Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard drive in speeds of up to 7200 Rotations Per Minute (RPM). Dell includes a special security feature on the hard drive which requires the user to enter a password on boot-up to access the laptop's data. Also available on this model are shock-resistant solid state drives. Optical drive options for the laptop's D-series modular bay include a compact disc reader (CD-ROM), a combo CD re-writable and DVD reader (DVD/CD-RW), a re-writable DVD drive (DVD+/-RW) or even a 1.44 MB floppy drive for legacy applications.
  
  

Design

• According to Laptop Magazine, the D630 Latitude is built with a "sturdy magnesium-alloy body" slightly heavier than IBM's popular R61 Thinkpad laptop. Typical system weight is around 5.8 pounds. One strange thing to note about this laptop is its placement of the 4 to 9 cell battery, which sticks out the front, near the touchpad.