E6410 Owner's Thread

@Jakeworld,

Don't take Goodbytes too literally. If you had accompanied the E6400 thread like I did, you'd know by now that Goodbytes can be enthusiastic when making his points. Nevertheless, he usually makes very good points, he has helped a lot of E6400 users, and I don't think he has buyer's remorse. He does what I also do sometimes: try to compensate the fact that everyone that bothers to come to a forum does so to complain or to seek help. It's not their fault, most people simply don't spend their free time posting on forums. That's why he defends the E6400 this vigorously (@Goodbytes: perhaps a little too vigorously sometimes ).

And I also agree with Goodbytes that the upgrade from the E6400 to the E6410 is relatively minor: considerably better GPU (whether Nvidia or Intel), better CPU performance but at the cost of greater heat (there are no 25W CPUs available) and DDR3 RAM which matters little. This doesn't mean that an E6400 owner should not buy an E6410, people have different priorities and different financial resources, and here I disagree with Goodbytes.

 

To those who bought E6410's from the Dell Outlet last week and got the WXGA screen although the System specs said WXGA+ when you ordered

I finally was able to get Dell to swap out my WXGA LCD with a WXGA+ one. It took like 6+ calls and spoke to 4 different reps.

I called Customer Care at first, and I got the same answer all of you got "Sorry for the inconvenience sir, the best thing we can do is issue you a full refund and you can re-order another E6410 with the right specs". I explained to the Dell rep that I got this E6410 on special and got a good price, of which the pricing was no longer available. He said there was nothing else he could do so I thanked him and ended the call

I called Customer Care the next day and got another rep, he gave me the whole "full refund + re-order" spiel again and I explained to him about the price etc. He transferred me to his Supervisor, whom told me that he'd check to see if they had any 14.1" WXGA+ screens in stock, and would get back to me in 24hrs.

Got an email back over 24hrs later which said something like "sorry, I tried my best but we don't have any 14.1" WXGA+ screens in stock...

At this point I was rather peeved but the WXGA 1280x800 res screen i had was pretty good color-wise so I decided to either live with it or just return the E6410 (I have a E4300/E4310 on the way).

I called Dell Tech Support for another case/computer and got a very helpful tech so decided to ask him about a recent order which came with the wrong part. He said no problem they can swap it out! After he checked the order number though he said the actual Dell part number on the order is a WXGA part, so unless Customer Care changes my order record to a WXGA+ Dell part number he could only change like for like (WXGA for WXGA)....so he told me to call Customer Care again to have them change that. I told him I called Customer Care twice already and they weren't very helpful at all, so the Dell Support tech agreed to call them on my behalf (while I was put on hold), explain the situation to them, and then we did a 3-way conf call. We talked to a new Customer Care rep (now the 3rd one I talked to about this E6410) and he agreed to chance the order record but he couldnt have access to a "Dell Refurb form" and would call me back within 24hrs to see if he was able to do it at a later time. I thanked him and the Dell Support Tech (he said to call Dell Tech Support back after Customer Care changed the Dell part number on my order record to a WXGA+ part and they'd have no problems swapping it out). I even gave the 3rd Customer Care rep the exact part number he needed to make it easier for him.

I didn't get a call back within 24hrs....but when i got home last night I was surprised by a little Dell box! I had no idea what it was until I opened it to see a 14.1" WXGA+ screen! I guess the Dell Tech Support <-> Customer Care combo finally squared things off. I swapped out the LCD myself and shipped back the WXGA one. I'm pretty happy but like others said I got the "LGD0257" WXGA+ screen which seems to have pretty crappy viewing angles and the colors look a bit washed out. In fact, maybe its just me but it seems the colors looked better on the original WXGA screen! Oh well.


CLIFFS NOTES ON WHAT WORKED FOR ME:

1) Call Dell Tech support at: 800-456-3355 extension: 7280860
2) Tell them about you receiving the wrong LCD part versus what you ordered (I forwarded them my Dell confirmation emails too showing I was supposed to get a WXGA+ screen)
3) Hopefully the Dell Support tech you get agrees to swap out your LCD.
4) If you were part of the early batch of E6410's ordered when the Dell Outlet first carried them (didnt even show on the Dell Outlet pictorial laptop catalog, you had to find it from the drop-down list), your Order number will most likely show that it has a WXGA 1280x800 Dell Part number. At this point the Dell Support Rep will tell you he/she can only swap like for like based on whats showing on the original order. He/she may suggest to call Customer Care to have them change the order to reflect a WXGA+ part number (Part number 875VK is for the LG WXGA+ screen, there are 2 other part numbers I dont know for the Samsung and AU Optronics screens). Suggest to him/her that he/she calls Customer Care for you to explain the situation, and then convene to a 3-way call to see what the next step is
5) Hopefully the tech agrees, and does the 3way call, and you get a nice Customer Care rep who is willing to change your order record for you to change the part number to WXGA+.
6) If the Customer Care rep can do so you are golden, just call Tech Support back to arrange a LCD swap.

Good luck!

 

When most companies say you may have a restocking fee it really means you will have a restocking fee. Dell is a bit different. They will waive the fee. If they don't, mention the total satisfaction guarantee.

 

I was one of the people that bought a e6410 and it was delivered last week with WXGA instead of WXGA+. The rep that was helping me was also giving me the whole return and reorder. Finally, they decided to ship me another at no cost to me. Anyways, I've decided to keep the WXGA.

They are just going to give me a credit for the screen upgrade cost. Its probably better anyway. The notebook is for the boss, and he can't see that great without reading glasses on and doesn't even care. Plus all the files and programs are already loaded, so he would be without a notebook for another day to reinstall.

 

Ohh and I am well aware of this, As I said, it was an apples to oranges comparison, but the fact remains that there are different grades offered, and they are charging us more for the lowest speed grade on the E6410 then they did for one of the middle speed grades on the E6400.

With each new laptop (and CPU) generation you should have a reasonable expectation that BOTH the clock and the efficiency should inprove (The previous P4 to Core transition being an acceptible exception)

 

First, let me qualify the following comments. Many of your posts are very informative and I genuinely appreciate the amount of effort you put in to producing quality posts that make reading them worthwhile. That said, I think perhaps you found a personal attack in my comment that I had never designed into the post. My point was that the emphatic reiteration of the E6400 is a bit unnecessary. Clearly you enjoy the product you purchased, but I get the impression that you are continuously justifying your E6400 ownership without any real need. I have a difference of opinion; there is no need to gain more insight from my post than that alone.

I completely agree that the E6410 is an unnecessary upgrade from an E6400, but that should go without saying. I just cannot agree with the implication that the Core i series is unsuccessful. Intel seemed to accomplish their goals, and while there is plenty of optimization to be had for future iterations on the 32nm process, for those who missed out on some of the recent and more mature Core 2 CPUs, the Core i series presents a respectable offering with respect to price and the thermal envelope.

With respect to your final comment, buyer's remorse is the last thing on my mind. As you can see in my signature, I am quite humble with my choice of notebook. I am working on a 4.5+ year old computer, and quite content with that, because it has served me well and quite reliably in the process. I look forward to a new computer in the near future, and certainly look forward to any opportunity I have with more recent technology.

I just wanted to get some further insight into why you are so vigorous in an unsolicited argument with respect to the E6400. I intended no hard feelings and I respect your opinion. Thank you for another detailed and informative post.

Thank you for the calm-minded and rational response, which employs the tone I was intending with my message, but apparently was unable to convey. This provides the insight I was seeking. Quality post

 

Reading todays posts it seems like both the WXGA and the WXGA+ have bad
viewing angles ? Up until now I thought it was only the WXGA and was
beginning to wonder if swapping for a "+" might be an idea. The E6510 screen
shown a few posts back, a "+", looks quite a bit better. Or is that a different
screen altogether ?

If a WXGA+ were to be swapped for a WXGA, will the driver recognize the
new resolution ?

Paul P

 

I am fairly sure it would be much like changing an external 17 inch LCD for a 22 inch LCD, the laptop would realize a different screen plugged into it and load the needed drivers, use a generic one, or ask for them if it did not have them.

 

The easy answer is to stay away from Latitude On Flash. I know it's a fascinating concept, but factoring in the time it takes to enter the mandatory password, it actually takes longer to load than Windows 7. If you don't believe me, read the Notebookcheck review of the E6410.

 

It's a useless feature in my opinion. Most enterprise level users of this laptop run some sort of encryption software. This keeps the On reader from accessing anything on the hard drive, making it useless. Worse yet, they put a button for it next to the real power button. Last thing we need is some wittless user hitting this button by mistake and calling our help desk because he does not recognize the screen that comes up. So we disable Lattitude ON reader in the BIOS.