E6520 Owner's Thread

Speakers on 6520 is nice and I find it adequate for my clinic.
Not teeny tiny sound.
Its good enough.
Better than other business class machines.

 

Thanks a lot, i'm tired of buying crappy consumer plastic laptops looking to move up to enterprise class business laptops but have heard reports of bad speakers. Thanks again for your response!

 

Hrrmm... I'd have to slightly disagree. While the output power for sound is good (e.g. headphones jack), the speakers themselves are not very loud. My i8600 had better/louder speakers.

I purchased a 14z for my daughter at Christmas and her speakers are much much louder than mine.

Don't get me wrong, they're not bad or awful, just not super loud. They work pretty well, but don't expect to play a movie and power a room with the sound from these speakers....

 

I have tested, owned, and used just about every Dell business notebook produced in the past 18 months in addition to many of the higher end consumer systems. In regards to audio, the XPS17 L702x is the best, but the fan noise can negate that. In regards to the business systems, I feel the E6520 is among the best systems you can buy and I find the audio very good in addition to the excellent build quality.

Scott

 

Hi Scott_RC-TEK, thanks for the info!

 

Hi ranranran, thanks for your oppinion. I know most consumer laptops have better audio but I'm tired of the bad build quality. I was all set to buy a Lenovo w520 until i heard the sound is really bad and running on battery the system really throttles the cpu/gpu. Thanks again!

 

You can greatly increase audio by going into Playback devices -> properties -> enhancements -> and checking off Loudness Equalization.

Or downloading Breakaway Audio Enhancer.

 

Hey guys,
I ordered a E6520 today via internet (unfortunately I couldn't call them as the 10% discount coupon is only valid until tomorrow and their lines aren't open on Saturday). But right now I'm having second thoughts.

Some background info:
I currently use a E6400 which basically runs fine, except the good old throttling issue.

Yes, I do use throttle stop, but my fans work at 100% 24/7 which is annoying (--> noise). Also, rebooting often takes ages because obviously, you can't run throttle stop while booting.

Apart from this really annoying issue, the laptop still runs extremely well (for more than 3 years now!) So I do not really NEED a new one, except I do.
If you know what I mean.

This machine still runs fine and I could live with the throttling I guess, but it's not perfect.
Oh, also I have trouble playing simple games like TF2 or WoW without hiccups.

I use the E6400 docked with a second 23'' screen.

So, I do wonder now if an upgrade to the E6520 is needed. It has a bigger screen with a far better resolution, which is kind of important for me as I'm a hobby photographer.

So I ordered the E6520 with
- FHD screen
- 4GB RAM
- i5-2520m
- NVIDIA NVS 4200M

Now I have some questions:

1. Is gaming possible? If so, to what degree?
(If you could name some games you played without problems that would be cool.)

2. How is the FHD screen when it comes to photo/video editing?

3. Are there any problems with the docking station (I have the small one)?
(with the E6400 there exist a lot of different issues apparently)

4. How is the fan noise and CPU/GPU temperature in normal usage (browser, some pdfs, music player, messenger) docked and undocked?
(Any problems at all?)

5. Would you suggest the upgrade E6400 to E6520 is worth it or rather buy a desktop PC or simply wait for a newer model?

 

Well, It is true that Dell Latitude has much better sound than Lenovo. Traditionally, Thinkapad's speakers seem to be weak. But if I had to choose between Lenovo W520 and Latitude E6520, I would choose W520 and that's because W520 belongs to workstation family instead of Latitude E6520 which belongs to Business family. If you want a Business Class notebook you have to choose between Thinkpad T520 and Latitude E6520. If you want a workstation notebook you have to choose between Thinkpad W520 and Precision M4600. I mentioned only IBM and Dell notebooks because I think you have decided to choose between them. Both T/W520 and Latitude E6520/Precisions are really robust and meet high quality standards. Both of them have advantages and disadvantages. So try to choose based on your needs. For example Thinkpads have weak speakers but a screen with 95% Gamut.

 

1. Off course gaming is possible. But nvidia NVS4200 is a card designed to meet business class notebooks requirements. If your priority is to use your notebook as a business class and additionally to play games compromising some of video games features (for example resolution, fps or other) then you are not going to have problems. If you are not ready to be compromised and you want to play every new game at the market, I don't think E6520 is for you.

2. FHD Screen is just fine for office work. It is just fine when it comes to photo/video editing if you are not a pro. You are not going to deal with image quality problems. But if you are a professional (Photographer, DTP, Digital Image processing, machine vision and so on) it is better to look for a Thinkpad T/W520 (Gamut 95%) or a HP 8740w for example. Generally speaking, E6520 FHD screen covers most of the needs.

3. I don't use docking station so I can not help you.

4. I think it is a noisy, especially if you work at a silent environment, but you are going to get used to it after a while. A lot of users disagree with that opinion. Search older posts so to read opinions of other users for noise issue.

5. Independs on your needs. Only you can answer this question.