E6420 Owner's Thread

Awesome, I just saw my first EXX20 system yesterday and it was a E5420. It's a nice looking rig, way nicer than the photo's on Dell.com suggest.

As for the bottom...I don't know...I never got a chance to pick up the system myself and flip it over, so I don't know if it's plastic or not. In any case, congrats on the new laptop!

Remember that temperatures can vary also based on location. Who knows how warm or cold the test room is at NotebookCheck or Laptop Mag. Yes, temp's are important, but can also be subjective.

There are two speakers......unless you meant that as in sound quality sucks, in that case its pretty subjective, but they probably do suck as Dell's never put really good speakers in their business systems for some reason. The E6400's I've used have had very good sound though.

I dunno about 3D mark as i'm very much a GPU noob. EDIT: Laptop Mag's system has integrated graphics only, whereas the Notebook Check system has Optimus graphics. That shouldn't make a difference, in fact it should pull it in the Notebook Check direction...but indeed Laptop Mag's score seems a bit high for Intel only graphics... I don't think Laptop Mag is "on the take" from Dell. I hope not as they'd lose a lot of credibility (whether they have any or not is up to you...) and it would be a disappointment.

The machine does appear to maybe have a slight bend. It could be the angle of the shot, because when you click to pic 9, it doesn't look it. I will say this: The fitment of the optical drive is absolutely inexcusable. This isn't a 300 dollar Inspiron but a 1K plus BUSINESS computer. Every previous E, D, and C series Latitude laptop I've played with through work has had perfect optical drive fitment. If the machine is indeed bent, then I'll be floored.

With the bottom issues and poor E-Bay device fitment, (on a review unit no less...you'd think these unit's have been gone over with a fine toothed comb....) this refresh seems rushed. The E6410 refresh isn't old at all....this should have possibly been worked over to become the F-series. :/

 

Got my e6420 with i7 yesterday. So far so good... mine does not seem to suffer from any fit/finish issues others have described.
Total weight with 6-call and media bay battery is 5lb 9-5/8oz (down from my old d630 with 6-cell and bay batt at 5lb 14-7/8oz)
Overall I'm pleased; the orange border on the keypad doesn't bother me much, but the permanently letter-boxed display is going to take a while to get over. This laptop is both longer AND wider than the d630, but the display is SMALLER. It's about 1/4" wider than the d630 panel, but it is almost 3/4" shorter. The pixel count is up slightly with 1600x900, but this new panel is down almost 7 square inches from my old d630 panel.
I just don't get this trend toward widescreen cinema display. This is a business laptop, for crying out loud... Am I missing something? Does a movie format display somehow make my spreadsheets and word documents easier to evaluate?

 

Congrats! The display sounds like it'll pretty much drive me away from getting one of these. Seriously, if its that big of a step down from the D630 (I'll assume you got the same 1440x900 panel that I have) then it's a no brainer for me to get a E6410 when the time comes and call it a day. The E6420's design is very nice, no lie, but the braindead decision to go 16:9 is just something I'll never understand.

To answer your question though (sorry about the mini rant ) the reason why they say they have to go 16:9 is due to more people wanting a dual-use machine and because the panel manufacturers insist that 16:10 is nigh impossible to do anymore economically due to the flat panel TV's, I call bunk on that though..there has to be some way.

I'd gladly pay more for something like a "E6420P" or something with a 1440x900 (or higher!) resolution proper 16:10 display.

 

X2. I'd MUCH rather have my movies be letter-boxed than have the display itself PERMANENTLY letter-boxed! My personal preference would have been to get a 6410 and look for something better to come along next year... but it'll do.
BTW, I don't remember if anybody posted the media bay batt weight: It's much lighter than the d-series @ 7.5oz (the dvd-rom is 5.1oz) . Of course it's much lower capacity too: 30 -vs- 48, but the old d-seies bay batt weighs in at 14.6 oz.

 

I would have very much liked the display to be 16x10 as well. However, considering the vertical res is also 900, I don't really complain about it.

I also do not know why the 16:10 displays are all that much more expensive. If you also look at the price difference between the Dell 23" IPS screen and the 24" one, I keep on being baffled (the 24" 16x10 is twice the price of the 16:9 23")

 

A02 BIOS and a new ControlVault firmware released yesterday. Anyone tried yet?

 

If someone checks the new A02 BIOS, could please confirm that the option to switch Optimus off is still there. I am using Linux and switching Optimus off is the only way I found to have a stable system.

Thanks

 

I got my E6420 just a couple of days ago, and so far I like it. But browsing through the list of software installed on this machine I happened to notice a driver named "AccelerometerP11", which apparently makes the Free Fall sensor work.

Why would that be installed on a computer with an SSD? Could it be hurtful to the drive? Can I safely deinstall it?

 

Tested the A02 BIOS myself. No apparent changes (the option to switch optimus off is still there, the DSDT is the same).

Actually there is something different: with A01, the PC docked and closed, and a monitor attached to the DVI port of the dock, I was not able to see the boot screen and to enter the bios. Apparently, during boot only the internal LCD was on (if I remember correctly). With A02 the external monitor is on by default (at least, if the PC is docked and the lid is closed).

As a final notice for those using linux only, I was able to flash the bios from a pure freeDOS usb key (nice).

 

Just got a new E6420 and so far so good...