Having been privy to a few leaked
Dell PowerPoint presentations in our day, we can say without reservation that they know how to blow that stuff out. Roadmaps? Charts? Bullet points? They've got it all, and this new Latitude E series presentation is no different. Sure, the subject matter is a little dry: reliable, boringbooks for businesses, but there are a few gems in here. The basic thing to get down is that Dell is kicking the D series to the curb, and is going E with its professional laptop line. Improvements include the perks of Centrino 2, more WWAN and other wireless chips, eSATA and Display Port plugs, thinner dockable laptops and huge ass batteries for all-day usage. The E6400, for instance, boasts 19 hours of battery with a 9-cell. On the teensy end, the E 4200 offers a 12.1-inch WXGA screen in a 2.2 pound form factor, with 32GB and 64GB SSD options. The E4300 bumps that up to 13.3-inches and 3.4 pounds. At the other end of the spectrum, the E 6400 ATG is a 5.6 pound beast designed to withstand drops, dust and moisture. The E 5400, 5500 and 6400 are the mainstreamers, with 14.1-inch and 15.4-inch screens, disc drives and all the other trappings you'd expect. Dell's roadmap has the larger laptops hitting in August, with the 12 and 13-inchers showing up in September. Unfortunately, it looks like the
XT2 is getting pushed out to January of next year, but it can't all be roses. Check out the gallery for all the sordid details.
posted July 29th 2008 4:40PM
no one else thinks this laptop looks like its from 1995? or is it just the quality of those powerpoint images?
I was wondering if I was missing something given that quite a few people were saying they liked the look of them, but I rather thought it looked like a Pentium 3-based Latitude that I had years ago and hated with a fiery passion. The detail around the screen hinges makes it look more modern but beyond that it looks like a generic cheap plastic case. It also appears to be chunkier than I like.
That said, these are clearly going to be mass produced business laptops so I think it's unreasonable to expect much more. If they get the job done at an acceptable price (and given the economic climate at the moment I know our IT budget has gone through the floor) then that's what's important.
The high end latitudes are cased in magnesium alloy, if you had a high end latitude you would know that.
We have a pre-production version of the E6400 at work that I've been playing around with and it's pretty nice compared to the old D-series. It's thinner and built a lot better - you'd never guess it was a Dell. It feels metal (some parts are, some are plastic) and it's very tight. Has the webcam and fingerprint ID, SD card reader in the front, some of the extra options.
Also has a GUI BIOS with mouse control.
Oh, and the power brick is huge. It's thinner than the one that came with old D-series and some Inspirons, but it has a bigger footprint and completely rectangular with pointier corners - it doesn't have the rounded edges like the old ones. So, while it might take up the same volume, it appears bigger.
All in all, the machine feels less cheap than the D630. The screen hinge is especially tight, which is a nice. I still wouldn't go replacing my home MacBook Pro with one of these, but I would be happy to use an E6400 as my work machine - that's more of what it's meant for, with dock and all.
Anyone noticed AMD is gone from 5400/5500?
Backlit keyboards would be nice to use on airplanes etc. Why don't more laptop manufacturers include them, or offer them as options? It would make them more competitive with Apple...
I, for one, am a huge Dell user. We started with Dell 10 years ago and there have been times when it has been bumpy. All in all, I trust their systems and I find their website very familiar. I love refurbs. Haven't bought a new system in over 7 years, to the best of my knowledge. I am excited about Dell's Mini E, but a little nervous about Linux. I think I would prefer an XP system. For the Vista lover above, I tried VISTA and found it hogged resources like a kid hoarding candy. I'll stick with XP on a netbook. Or maybe I'll even try UBUNTU (if I can pronounce it). Anyway, I am a mid-range, somewhat fearless user. I am not afraid to crack open the shell and look at the inside of the egg. Cheers to all!