Estimate on a Dell E4200?

As far as I see it, the E4300 competes with Lenovo's X300, and the latter has a street price tag of ~$2500 USD.

The E4200 competes with Lenovo's X200, and the latter has a price tag of ~$1200 USD. I don't know if the E4200 can compete with the X200S (assuming the "S" is much higher priced than the X200), since Dell has no other product to compete with the X200, apart from the E4200. I simply can't believe that Dell will allow themselves not to have any 12.1" Latitude product closer to $1000 USD, while other manufacturers will. Let's hope that this "hole" in Dell's lineup will indeed play to our advantage and keep the price of the E4200 sane.

I also want to remind you that with all due respect to the lenghts that Dell went through to make the E4200 weigh 998 grams, it is still the sole replacement of the D430, and the D430 was introduced at $1488 USD with a 6 cell battery (not 4 like the E4200). In technology we usually don't go backwards in price from year to year...

 

Turns out there a fairly busy thread dedicated to the mini Inspiron over in the Dell Inspiron and Dell Studio forum.

 

Huh, the E4200 as competition for the X200? The E4200 is only available with SSD drives and is Dell's light weight notebook. The E4300 will be the D430's entry-level-price replacement.

Today, a D430 is almost $1800 with the 64GB SSD. An E4200 with the 128GB SSD drive might be at or over $2400.

If you look at the E-Latitude timeline that was on Engadget:

http://www.engadget.com/photos/dells-latitude-e-series-roadmap-revealed/710234/

you see that the E4200/E4300 initially had a September 08 introduction.

The FCC held up the certification of the Intel Montevino chipset/integrated graphic hardware which delayed the introduction of the E6400/E6500 by 2 months. I'd bet the E4200 won't ship until late September or October at the earliest.

 

The E4300 has a 13.3" screen, and hence it can't replace the D430 (which is a 12.1" screen). The difference in size is very important to "road warriors".

Apart from the E4200, Dell has NO offering for a 12.1" laptop in its Latitude line. Hence this makes the E4200 a direct replacement for the D430, and from the same reason also a competitor for Lenovo's X200.

I think one of three things will happen (to make the price of the basic E4200, cheap enough):

1. Dell signed a contract to receive cheap 64GB SSD for the E4200.

2. There will be an option for a cheaper 32GB SSD drive.

3. There will be an option to a regular 5400rpm drive.

It will be very very stupid of Dell to make the price of the E4200 high JUST because of the SSD, especially since their new E line offers no cheaper alternative for a 12.1" laptop. They're probably smarter than this.

 

You can definitely rule that out. The E4200 is 0-spindle so it's definitely SSD only.

I really expect it to come in as the most expensive 'base configuration' Latitude.

Considering it's only launching next week I'd be inclined to agree. In fact it could probably be even later.

 

In that case, most people who want a 12.1" ultraweight business laptop, will just go with Lenovo's X200 or X200S, the difference with the E4200 is not big enough to justify hundreds of dollars premium (at least for most people).

 

the New Dell latitudes are very special machines and really should not be ranked with machines like the eee or wind. If you're not convinced of this, you should check out the specs and features, then remember, they are just 1kg for the E4200 !!

Always on for email, browsing / trackable, remote data wipe when stolen/precicion backlit keyboard fingerprint reader/very long battery life/dual core/ 3g. Those are not small extras , but big features that make this machine a cut above the others. It will be expensive.

 

Weight wise, the E4300 is about the same as the D420. The E4200 seems to be in a new category all its own.

 

I'm expecting this to be around $1600 starting out.. I want one real bad.. it's the weight of a Netbook but with the power of a true notebook. 1.4ghz ULV > 1.6ghz Atom any day of the week.. Running laps around the N270 easily.

Jay

 

I'm estimating the e4300 to be in the 1600-1800 range, which is why I went with the e6400 instead. I heard they would be available September 16 so give it an extra 2 weeks before someone here receives one.