Latitude E6400 durability vs T400

i like the e6400, the display is great, and dell support has been fantastic. quality seems good to me, and if anything is wrong, they take care of it fast. and thats with the free 3 years at the outlet.

 

As the member who has probably has the E6400 the longest (since 28th August 08) I would say that my positive remarks about the build quality that I made in my review still apply.

The hinges have loosened up a little but nothing which creates a problem. Some paint is starting to wear off the front corners, but there is no sign of any impending structural problems.

The one improvement that Dell need to make is to put some rubber bumpers along the top of the display bezel. I have recently put three of these (cut down to about half thickness) and they stop the display bezel from rubbing against the palmrest when the computer is closed.

At Dell Outlet pricing you can't go wrong with the E6400. I paid a lot more and still think it is good value for money.

John

 

Thats a great idea, thanks !

How did you cut the bumpers ? Did you cut on the "sticky" side or "bumper side"

Was the diplay bezel getting scratched earlier ?

 

I almost don't believe these t42/D820 comparisons. My experience has been completely the opposite.

First, the D820 is nearly some 40% thicker than the T42. I would hope that it would be at the very least as sturdy as the thinkpad. They are in a completely different size category. Second, rollcage or not, the plastics in the thinkpad are head and shoulders over what Dell uses. The rubber coated exterior and lightly textured interior plastics wear much better than the flat, thin plastics used by Dell. Combine that with the metal hinges and from a purely robust standing the thinkpad is miles ahead. But that said, weight, size and durability are only issues if you are hauling your laptop to work with you everyday on say public transit. If you dump it in the car or leave it at work these considerations are much less important.

I will agree that the thinkpad screens outside of their old flexview displays are less than stellar.

Being an architecture graduate student, I see endless make and model systems everyday and I've personally owned, an IBM 600x, Dell Inspiron 5000, Gateway 320M, Thinkpad T41p, T42, T60p and Dell M4400 and the thinkpad's combination of speed/size/build quality is why I keep on ended up back with them. They simply just wear well.

If you value LCD quality most, get the a Dell with a RGBLED screen. Otherwise, if you need a system you can lug around daily, get the Thinkpad, they have newer brighter t400 LED displays now. The new Dells are admittedly better built, but there's no way I let my M4400 be at the bottom of a pile of text books. And all of that said, while I love the form factor of the t400 (they also have fantastic battery life), even with the new-old keyboards, they aren't quite up to the same build quality as the T40/60 series. There's some flex in both the lcd and chassis. The thinkpad build quality is there, but not quite, and definitely don't expect anything better than it's predecessors.

 

Let me be more precise.

T4x: Outer skin ages very well, good plastics, but chassis/lid not rigid, and hence transmits flexes to internal components. The GPU failure is a very well know problem due to base flex.

D820: Rigid (and as far as know, it uses metal hinges too), internal components/LCD very well protected but plastics chip off as they are not flexible.

T61: Thin outer skin, but very good internal rollcage. Palmrest wears off as plastic is just a skin; and not the same plastic as the sturdy plastics of T4x; but easily replaceable as ittttts just a thin skin.

Build qualty wise I'd rate it T61 >D820>T42

 

I think the M4400 is pretty darned average compared to the model's they replaced.
Lol at John's screen bumper fix,I've never had to resort to this on any notebook,my M4400 bumper's were gone by month 2 and as far as I'm concerned,the little bumper retainer's can keep slamming into the chintzy screen bezel until it fall's apart....then dell can replace it,at their cost.

I really like most thing's about the new M4400,but the build quality isn't one of them.....too many loose fitting parts,money saved on retaining method's,battery rattle's,bottom plate rattle's,screen rattle's when closed and has uneven gap's,power jack is flimsy and loose.......give me the M65/M4300 with the innard's and screen of the M4400 any day.

The basic notebook,palmrest,hinges are great,but the fit and finish of some part's leave's a lot to be desired,and ruin's the overall quality imo.

 

I agree almost completely. Take the T4x quirky ibm design touches with the t6x chassis and dell m4400 videocard/lcd, put that in a 14 inch form factor laptop with half decent speakers and there is my dream machine.

 

Wow, I thought the M4400 was better built than the M65 !!

 

I took the Dell because I'm able to customize the specs according to what I need. I can't do so for Lenovo or HP in my country. Otherwise, I would have taken the T400 or the EliteBook 6930p without any questions asked.

 

I have and still use a Dell Precision M70, and it is built like a tank (and weighs like one); very rigid with a fabulous keyboard. I have a much older Inspiron 8100, and it is even heavier but nowhere near as well contructed, but it also has a good keyboard (though not as good as the M70). But, as chupacabras rightly says, build is not a huge issue if you don't move it around so much. I am finding this discussion very interesting. I am lookng at choosing between the Thinkpad W500 or the Latitude E6500...