Latitude E-Series Anticipation Thread

Would upgrading to a 9-cell battery option be a better choice? My only concern is whether with that extra buldge at the back, would the laptop still be able to fit those "Designed for 14.1-inch widescreen" laptop sleeves.

 

unless it is a sleeve, it will likely fit, most have a decent amount of play. and there is no "better choice" it depends on how long you want the battery to last, and whether you think it is worth the extra sized form factor and increased weight.

 

UPDATE --- the e series is now available as an educational purchase program -- 12% discount for laptops over 1600 with 3/4 year service contract.

edit -- which is both good, and bad. makes it a lot harder to wait until the middle of september to order the machine on the hope that they switch to DDR3. Anyone have any guesses on the likelihood? (especially fattire, our illustrious early user -- who i believe said the machines he'd seen shipped with DDR3-1066).

 

New laptops went up on EPP Wednesday night. $800-$1600 get 8% off, >$1600 is 12%. I'm holding out till Monday to see if bluetooth shows up. If Small Business gets some deals for the new laptops, I may consider ordering from them instead...


I'm happy they have DDR2, just because it is only $90 to get 4GB of ram, while DDR3 is $200. DDR3 will be great later when it actually has a benefit for the price.

 

bluetooth is already available, it just doesnt show. you need to talk to the dell rep (although they say it is default). the UWB bluetooth option will not be available until the first 2 weeks of september.

edit -- additionally, DDR2 and DDR3 will have different form factors, so the ENTIRE computer will need to be replaced to use DDR3. these computers have a useful life of at LEAST a few years, so that means another purchase far too quickly.

 

Anybody have a firm date on the E4300 release?

 

Will the E-Media Bay accept an extended battery as the actual Latitudes(D/Bay)? (I found nothing @dell.com :/ )
Is the battery slice the only way to increase battery life?

I smell a waste of space (DVD/CD are (for me) totally unnecessary).

 

No media bay batteries. The battery slice is the 2nd battery and thats it.

e4300 should be able to quote and order towards the beginning of September.

 

fattire, do you have anything further on whether they will be switching production over to DDR3? weren't you saying that the prerelease models shipped with DDR3? I am holding off at the moment until maybe mid september to see.

@EagleDevil -- a dell rep hinted that it would be the first two weeks of september, the same time at which latitude ON goes live.

 

I'm actually glad that it uses DDR2 rather than DDR3... There isn't much of a performance gain right now but 4gb of DDR3 would cost over $100 more than 4gb of DDR2.

Does anyone know about how much battery life the M4400 gets?