Latitude E5500 Owner's Lounge

Hi, i've been searching this forum and googling the web, Dell Latitude E5500 is mentioned now and then, you can find some tech info & prices, but it seems that there are no reviews yet...

Or, are they? Have you seen any? Post a link please. Or post your own thoughts... Thanks

And if there are more of us around... let's open the Owner's Lounge!

links & reviews:

Dell Latitude E5500 Product Details
Customer Reviews for Latitude E5500
techbargains.com: Dell Latitude E5500 Review (October 1st, 2008) - review (note: there is a 200GB 7200RPM HD available too, not only up to 160GB as stated in the review)
Patrick Verbruggen’s Blog: Dell Latitude E5500 (October 4th, 2008) - first impressions... where d’ya get that Thinkpad from?
notebookcheck.net: Business Trabant (January 17th, 2009) - detailed review of E5500 (thanks for the link drfelip)
talklaptops.info: Dell Latitude E5500 Review (January 29th, 2009) - really brief one
techrepublic.com: Product Spotlight: Dell Latitude E5500 Laptop (March 5th, 2009) - Erik Eckel's blog post on E5500

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Hmmm... nobody? Gosh, has anyone ever seen this thing at all?? I'm close to believe that it is just a phantom...

Actually i was tempted to open a shiny new Owner's Lounge, but it looks like i'd end up sitting there lonely, watching the door stealthily if the handle moves finally...

 

I honestly believe you're the only person in the world who owns one of these.

I was looking at buying one of these, but the E6x00 series seems to be a much better deal. For about 100 bucks more, you get a tripled warranty, a smaller, lighter frame, and sturdier construction. I'd imagine this is why you see so many people getting the E6400 and E6500, but no one getting the E5400 or E5500.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

ah... it's the US prices & warranty. somewhat different here in Europe... bigger price gap & kinda same warranty for both models. ok, i think i'll be fine with being the white crow.

 

OK, time to update and add first impressions

My E5500 arrived yesterday, despite the original EST was November 20 (!), and it was delivered between weeekend and the tuesday's bank holiday. Nice.

As a 15.4" it is... a little bigger than i expected. But one gets pretty quickly used to the wider screen and larger resolution. The chasis looks... kinda better that on promo pictures, it's not *that* ugly as i've been warned... - NO, it's not ugly at all. It's just no "stylish" toy. And i like the blue leds... (And: it is really BLACK. When looking to my old Travelmate, i wonder why i ever thought that it was black...)

The antiglare screen is very very nice, and with the ambient light sensor (great thing!), it is pretty pleasant to look at it. The keyboard is well arranged, only it's a litte bit more "stiff" (or how to call this) than i'm used to. It is new for me, so that i often hit Ctrl instead of Delete and so on, but it is a matter of few days of using it i suppose. Extra volume controls are a big plus. The touchpad is working smoothly, and i've also immediately started liking the trackpoint too. Never used it before... but it's a nifty thingy!

Speakers are surprisingly loud, and despite it's built in, the sound is not as bad as one would expect. Quite okay for watching movies (sure, it is NOT a home cinema), well... listening to the Joshua Tree Paris gig (for testing purposes...) will be done with external boxes next time - but i really cannot complain. Only the internal microphone seems to catch all noises from around and the hiss is quite loud, but it's fine for skype calls and stuff like that.

Openig the lid is a little bit tough too, but definitely not more than acceptable. Only when you want to open the display wider, you need to hold the keyboard slightly, so that it won't follow the display... If it won't change during the time (maybe it's because the laptop is so new? dunno), i think i can live with that.

The laptop works smoothly with my win xp, no drivers issues or whatever. The only issue so far was a new MAC adres not getting enough lovefrom my ISP... No part of the laptop is getting hot (well, the recharger is not really cold... but it's okay, and wait, i forgot to praise it how slim it is!), only to the left of the touchpad, the temperature is slightly higher. No bugging bloatware inside: only the apps i wanted (eh, at least it seems so), with backup media.

So, that's it. Anyone else has impressions to share?

 

Does it have fully metall chassis like E6500, or only aluminium LCD back?

 

I have not analysed that... but in the tech specs, they write "Durable Polycarbonate and aluminum LCD back and Base". It's not the same as with E6500.

 

The E5x00 series is really out-of-place. It's a "budget" Latitude series, shouldn't that be an oxymoron.....I thought the Vostros were meant to be the budget business machines?

 

The "target audience" is different. The Vostros are targeted at small business, while the Latitude E5x00 have the same load of security features as their more expensive cousins and are targeted at large business. Think of IT departments which don't want to pay their employees an E6x00

 

...and also think of european customers who don't pay funnily low US prices... (ordering from USA would not be worth of it, with all fees and shipping, it would cost almost the same.) I believe that E6500 is definitely better, but this one is pretty good too.