Considering moving from E6400 to E4300, thoughts?

I had both a E6400 and E4300, similar specs.

I sold the E6400 because of the weight/size. I absolutely love the size and weight of the E4300.

When I had them both side by side, I could not tell any difference between the displays. I wonder if there is either more than one manufacturer of the LCD/LED panels, OR there is a big variance in quality of the panels from the production line.

Overall, there is nothing my E6400 can do that my E4300 can't do.

As far as battery life, on my E6400 with the 9 cell, I can get a solid 8 to 9 hours of use with wifi turned on doing general web surfing, email, word, excell doc type of stuff.
on the E4300 with the 6 cell doing the same type of work I can get a solid 5 to 6 hours.

I would definitely recommend the E4300 over the E6400.

 

Having recently moved to a E4300, I'm definitely glad that I made that move. The extra portability is a huge bonus for me, even though I find myself occasionally looking for wall sockets.

 

I travel a fair bit, but then I also look at a lot of spreadsheets and do coding. the WXGA screen just did not do it for me, and I moved from a E4300 to a E6400 with WXGA+.
I really do not know why Dell cannot find a happy medium. I would have stayed with the E4300 but i just cannot do the WXGA screen. I have tried several times and always end up a WXGA+. So that is what i am staying with.

My suggestion before you sell your E6400, beg plead and borrow a E4300 for a week and see if you can live with the WXGA.

 

I've got both the E6400 and the E4300 to hand. I'm surprised by the unfavourable remarks about the E4300's display. Mine (with LGD4601 panel) is very similar in quality to the excellent LGP display in my E6400. One of the attached photos shows both machines side by side in bright sunlight.

One of the attached photos shows that the E4300 is not a lot smaller than the E6400. With 6 cell batteries in each, the front to back distance is about the same but the E4300 is a bit narrower. However, the weight difference is significant: My E4300 is about 1.78kg compared with the E6400's 2.32kg. That's 0.54kg difference.

The deciding factor is whether one prefers the lower weight to the slight loss of display real estate (assuming WXGA+ on the E6400). If you are happy with WXGA then there is no contest. I prefer the E4300's location of Page Up / Page Down and would like Dell to put those as extra keys on the E6400 instead of two empty seats. Battery life with the same hardware configuration is very similar.

John

 

I havent tried them side by side but the screens seems similar from what i have read (but the E6500 have a better and brighter screen). The specs are about the same on the E6400 and E4300 so if you dont want the nvidia card then the E4300 seems really nice, (if you want portability).

 

All the students at my school have 4300s, 5400s, or 6400's. I've compared my 4300 against a number of 6400's and have not seen a huge difference in quality. Sure its smaller, but besides that its not any worse for how it looks.

 

Thank you all for your input! It seems like I would definitely benefit from switching to a 4300.

Another question - would anyone recommend the E4200? I was looking at the outlet and the prices for the E4200's are in the same ballpark. I've read a lot of reviews and posts on the E4200 and most of them had mixed opinions. Most notably the crappy screen quality, constant running fan, mediocre performance of the SSD, and the decreased ruggedness compared to the other Latitudes (flimsy LCD cover, etc.). I really like the small form factor of the E4200, the light weight, performance and features it offers and the limited capacity of the SSD doesn't really bother me since I don't need that much storage space. So it looks good on paper to me but I'm wondering how good it is in real life.

 

The E4200 is only if interest if you give weight high priority over performance. Whereas the E4300 is in the same performance league as the E6400 (with Intel graphics), the E4200 has a slower CPU and HDD / SSD. The ULV CPU pushes up the price but, in reality, gives little gain in battery life. I also like the E4300's integrated optical drive. I don't use an optical drive much, but i wouldn't leave home without one.

If you are thinking of the E4200 then you should also look at the new products based on the Intel CULV platform.

John

 

Mobility will sum up a move like this. How important is mobility to you?

For the most part, the screen, build quality, and keyboard will roughly be the same.

I am also astonished by the unfavorable reviews of the screens. While I don't own one, I've seen the 4300 side by side with my Dell, HP and XT2, and they aren't the blemishes that others have noticed.