Help me evaluate my Latitude E6500 (scratch and dent)

So, it arrived a couple of days ago, and I'm trying to figure out if I should keep it or not.

Specs for the laptop are:
Latitude E6500 Laptop: Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 (2.53GHz, 6M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
WindowsXP Pro, with Vista upgrade disk.
There was no documentation (manual) with it at all.

-- 6 Cell Primary Battery
-- Back-lit Keyboard
-- 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz (1 DIMMs)
-- 90W AC Adapter
-- NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M
-- Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module
-- Integrated Webcam with digital microphone
-- Intel WiFi Link 5300 802.11a/g/n Draft Mini Card
-- 250 GB Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
-- 8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
-- Genuine Windows XP Pro with Vista Business License
-- 15.4 inch WXGA+ LED Laptop Screen

I paid $735 with a 20% off coupon.

It's definitely got a rather visible dent, and the chassis is bent out of shape. Looks like it fell and landed on it's right front corner.

It runs fine, no problems connecting to the wlan or the internet, sound seems fine with no crackling (if a little tinny), the backlit keyboard is fantastic and I love typing on it.
Touchpad is a serious hassle when it comes to scrolling, and I hope they are planning on an upgraded driver soon.
My previous touchpad is a Synaptics and beats this one by a mile!

I'm not sure about the screen (1440x900, LED backlit).
Is it supposed to be a vast improvement over regular screens?
If yes, I'm not seeing it and the colors seem a little off.
I've tried adjusting it, but am not convinced I did a good job.
Does this laptop have an "Auto Synch button" somewhere?
When I try and use the Nvidia Screen optimizer Wizard", it tells me to locate that, and I'm not finding any info about it.

Fan is very nice and quiet compared to my emachines M6809, but the dvd drive is very loud! Is that normal, or could it have to do with the chassis being bent in that corner?

Hardrive is fast and quiet, and the laptop is a lightweight compared to my almost 9lbs emachines!

Any advice to installing Windows7 on this (in another partition)?
Is the driver cd that came with the laptop going to be good enough, or do I need to hunt down drivers elsewhere?

 

There are updated touchpad drivers on the Dell website, as well as other updated drivers. If you install 7, use the newer ones.

Greg

 

Thanks!
I'll get all the latest drivers (would I use Vista or XP drivers for Windows7?) and give it a try.

I have the latest XP driver for the touchpad.

 

Most outlet orders are reported to be like new. I'm curious, did Dell tell you your order was going to be a bit beat up?

GK

 

If it's a scratch and dent, it's pretty much luck of the draw, previously ordered new and certified refurbished systems are the only ones that you can be absolutely sure aren't going to be damaged.

 

It was listed as a "scratch and dent", so I knew to expect some minor damage. It didn't specify what that damage would be.

Mainly, I wonder if this affected the dvd burner, since it's rather loud, and I now wonder if the LED screen was worth getting.
Either I have a grainy one (it's an LG), or my old laptop had a fantastic screen and I'm spoiled.

It's a lot brighter, but I have to have it dialed down to the next to lowest setting to be able to look at it. It's like seeing through a bright, sparkly curtain.

 

Isn't there some wording on the outlet site that characterizes the type of damage you might get? If the damage bothers you, I'd call them and see if they think it is reasonable or not.

 

The damage itself doesn't bother me.
I spoke to Dell support, and they don't think the dent has anything to do with the loudness of the dvd drive. They think it's them saving on weight by using less soundproofing and lighter materials in general, that contributes to more noise.

Can anyone confirm that the dvd drive on this model generally runs fairly noisy?

The fan and HD are very quiet on mine.

I'm generally pleased with the laptop and hope there will be a touchpad driver upgrade soon. The unresponsiveness of the scrolling feature is what bothers me the most.

 

I commented about the touchpad on my E6500 not being sensitive enough and I got this advice:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=338856&highlight=trackpad

 

Thanks!
I've changed some of the settings, and am using a Firefox scrolling add-on to help out during surfing.
I'm still running into the occasional unresponsiveness, and I'm missing the feature my old lappy had, where you could choose to have the window the cursor was over as automatically active.
With the E6500, I have to tap on the window first, before I can use scrolling, but maybe I'm overlooking the obvious?

Also, is it possible to use the "home" and "end" keys during surfing? I use this a lot, but it doesn't work with the Dell.