Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge, Part 2

I'd love that to happen, keeping fingers crossed for a couple of months !
I was pretty much in the "same chassis for 2 generations" boat.

 

Yeah but the market has moved on since that design came out. Premium materials AND sexy designs are the current trend. I expect Dell realises the current chassis divides opinion and needs to up its game.

 

Well I have a hard choice, and I wanted to get some thoughts on the matter. I just picked up a used dell N5040 for super cheep because it was not working. I sent it into dell for repairs. I am trying to decide which to sell off.

The N5040 has the i3 380m cpu, 4gb ram, intel hd vid, and about 250 days of warranty left.
I have my E6400 as my daily laptop 2.4 dual core, 4gb ram (2x2gb), nvidia 160m vid card, and about 20 days warranty left. I do like the sound on this laptop. It is decent compared to most I have had before.

I like the newer cpu, the option to upgrade to 8gb ram for $20 (ddr3 is way cheaper than ddr2), but I don't know about the vid card on the N5040. I also understand that gen 1 i5 cpus can be put into this laptop.

I will be using my SSD drive in which ever system I keep, so that is not a point to worry about. It looks like both systems have sata2 ports, so my sata3 drive should max that out.

Thoughts?

 

I'd keep the latitude - business grade over consumer any day. The SSD will make it fly anyway.

Or, sell both and buy a nice shiny new one

 

Reasons?

 

Latitude: better built, sturdier chassis, better keyboard, better cooling, parts are business grade and more durable. It will last 5-10 years easy. I'd expect an Inspiron to die within 3-4 years if it hasn't fallen apart before then.

But if you want an upgrade, sell both and buy a new Latitude.

 

Kind of vague. Sounds like a Chevy vs Ford argument, and I am looking for more of a comparison of two specific units. Any line up is going to have some models that are better or worse than others. Maybe something like you don't want to keep the n5040 because they are filled with exploding ferrets, or the E6400 is powered by a cold fusion battery that will make you sterile when it sits on your lap. At the moment I am leaning towards the N5040 just because it has the newer cpu, and cheaper ddr3 memory.

 

You asked for my reasons and I gave them. Sounds like you've made your own mind up anyway.

 

No. More like Chevy vs Honda. Inspiron build quality is atrocious compared to the business Latitudes. I personally agree with cowboycoder. I would definitely keep the Latitude.

Also, depending on what Penryn CPU you have in your Latitude, the i3 380m isn't going to be any faster. i3 has no TurboBoost, and HT only adds minimal performance improvement to the first gen i-series. Further, the Quadro 160 is still a good deal more powerful than the Arrandale HD graphics.

 

I also fully agree with CowboyCoder. I've had my Latitude for almost 3 years, and it looks (and works) as if it were brand new. It even fell from the table once (~2-3 feet of height), not a scratch...