Dell Latitude 6430u - finally a manufacturer that gets the business ultrabook!

Just ordered a 6430u with a 1600x900 display, should be here in 3 weeks. For all non-American folks like me, if you want the HD+ screen you need to call/email Dell, it's not available online...

 

My 6430u already has the needed antennas for the 3G/4G installed.
I wonder where they are actually positioned: if the screen cover under the softtouch painting is metal it will likely interfere with signal.

In my old Acer 3810T the WIFI antennas are installed behind the only small plastic part of the back screen cover.
The 3G antennas that I have installed behind the aluminium part seems to have low signal strenght but I've not made an extensive test yet, maybe I was just sitting in a bad spot or the Option 382 card doesn't play nicely with my carrier infrastructure.

 

Just got my 6430u, it's really a very nice laptop, awesome keyboard, trackpad, very solid build but indeed a bit noisy now and then, which I can live with.
There is one huge problem though: The display. I have the 1600x900 display and when you take a close look it's looks as if the light from the backlight refracts (<- hope I got the right word) on the anti-glare coating. You can almost see the RGB colors themself. Since I'm quite sensitive to cheap/bad lcd displays this is giving me major headaches and eye strain.

Do other owners see this weird light refraction/glitter effect too?

 

Mine is the base resolution: the screen is nothing to write home about, but I don't notice any color splitting/prism-like effect

 

Please let me know if you find out if this is normal or not. I plan to order one with this resolution as well.

Can you hook up 2 monitors at the same time to it (One with HDMI and the other with VGA)? If so, that would make it very useful.

 

Hey everyone, my 6430u finally arrived. IT said they had trouble with it until they updated all the drivers, and then they said it worked great.

I have been using it for 2 days now, and it is fantastic. So far no issues of any kind.

Fan noise: My IT department puts their own Enterprise Win7 on it, and the fan drivers work. Most of the time it sits quiet with fan off. If I started using it a bit more, the fan turns on, but so low, you can't hear it. For heavy use, the fan is on medium, and I can hear it, but not so bad. The fan only gets annoying when doing extreme tasks, like I am doing now, which is rendering a 1 hour video in Adobe Premiere, while simultaneously doing 5 other things.

Freezes: I have really pushed this laptop to the limits, and it just keeps chugging along smoothly. There doesn't seem to be any of the weird "pauses" or "freezes" I have encountered using other ultrabooks. Really a smooth experience.

Display: I have the 1600x900 display, and while not an IPS panel, I am very happy with it. The viewing angle and brightness is more than enough. The matte finish really cuts down on the glare from the fluorescent lights in my office, and light from my side windows.

tabakkie: I am very OCD with displays, and very susceptible to rainbow problems with projectors, and I simply do not see an prism affects on my display. I think you got a bad one with a misaligned color filter.

nexus444: I have hooked up my monitor (1920x1200) to both vga and hdmi ports, and both work. I do not have a second monitor to see if both can be driven simultaneously.

Long story short, while its only been a couple days, I am loving this laptop so far.

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nexus444: I just borrowed another monitor. Yes, it can simultaneously drive the hdmi port in the back and the vga port on the side. However, it can only drive two displays, so you loose the built in display when driving the two monitors. I had an extended desktop with my 1920x1200 monitor and the borrowed 1920x1080 monitor.

tabakkie: Now that I stare at the built in monitor, I do see a bit of "moire" caused by the matte surface diffracting with the pixel pattern of the panel. I have seen this on all matte displays, including adding 3M matte filter to a monitor. I don't see any colors to the effect, it is black and white twinkling, and the effect is so subtle, I have to look hard for it while moving my head left and right. However, everyone's eyes are different, so perhaps you see colors.

 

saturo: My cpu speed settings seem to work. My OS just shows Win7 Enterprise SP1.

 

Mine says cpu at 2.5Ghz

The performance monitor instead shows it's slower.

 

You can always download Intel XTU: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...5&keyword=""extreme+tuning+utility""&lang=eng and run a quick stress test, you'll see your CPU clock, temps and if any throttling occurs. The CPU will be at lower clocks under light loads in order to reduce power draw whether it's on battery or AC, but should go to full turbo under heavy load.

 

tijo: thanks for the app. I installed it and played around.

saturo: I still think my cpu performance drivers are working, as I can set the min and max state to different values in power options, and then see the result in the Intel XTU program. For example, if I set max plugged in CPU to 100% and max battery to 50%, as I plug and unplug the power, I see the processor go between 50 and 100%, and fan respond accordingly as the temp change.