Buying an E4300

I'm interested in buying a good portable notebook and the E4300 is one of the main contenders because of the solid build, good batterly life and its weight and size.
So I've been reading many mixed reviews about the latitude e4300 where many people thought it didn't live up to what you would expect from a premium business notebook with a premium price.

So to all owners, now that the price has dramatically decreased (note that I'd be buying it from the Dell outlet with a 20% discount coupon), would you guys recommend this notebook for a price range between 550 - 700 bucks? Or do you still think there are better (and/or newer) competitors out there for that price?
Thanks

 

I love my E4300, and for $700, it would be a total steal.

 

The E4300 is competitive with the Lenovo ThinkPad X301 in almost every way for a fraction of the price. The X301 has a 13.3"1440x900 display and standard SSD (Solid State Drive, rather than mechanical hard drive).

The E4300 has much faster processors, a backlit keyboard and standard 3-year warranty (even on the Outlet models). It's a helluva deal!

 

I'm not 100% satisfied with my E4300 (build quality should be a little better and keyboard could be a tad better; on a side note I also have some lingering problems which are probably related to windows and drivers, was waiting for Vista SP2 to do a re-install...). But overall I still like it and would definitely recommend it at that price.