Need a reliable laptop...So is that a Latitude?

I'm tired of paying $300-650 for laptops that fall apart, have glitches and problems, and stop functioning after 1-2 years of normal use.

I'm interested in the Dell Latitude E7450 with i5-5200U/8GB Ram/500GB drive/FHD Anti-glare screen, ~$1320,. The primary purpose of the laptop is for academia, Netflix, and occasional light gaming (emulators).

Are Dell Latitudes reliable? I've only used Inspirons and they were all junk and failed within 2 years. I want a business laptop because they're supposedly better quality over consumer models, and I greatly appreciate the standard 3 year warranty in case there is an issue. Business laptops also allow the user to *gasp* UPGRADE the hard drive, RAM, and battery...which these features are increasingly being glued permanently into the computer on consumer models. NO THANKS.

Lenovos are out of the question because of the millions of complaints on the internet and because of the MITM superfish fiasco.; in short Lenovo is untrustworthy IMO. HP charges too much for their business laptops if you want anything better than 4gb of RAM and a FHD screen. And so that leaves me with Dell Latitude...

Does anyone have either the Latitude 72xx (12.5") or the 74xx (14")? Any problems? Heating problems? Failures? I appreciate any feedback!

 

the Precisions are the top end, then the higher model Latitudes, ( some are rebadged inspirons ) in HP you have the Zbooks, the Elitebooks and some of the Probooks. in Lenovo they do make good models but are limited to some of the T and X series only. ( I never care about pre loaded crap because EVERY system I buy I clean load the OS myself )

 

It's the lower end Latitudes (eg 3000 series) that are rebadged Inspirons. The E7450 is in the top end of the range, is designed for ease of replacing parts or repair (if needed) and the full documentation for parts replacement is provided.

My E7440 has given me no cause for concern but I've only had it for 6 months. Probably my biggest grumble is that the fan is noisier than I would like when the system is under heavier load. It's not particularly loud (only audible in a quiet room) but I believe notebooks with low power CPUs should be able function quietly but the manufacturers keep shrink the fans.

John

 

Just to be clear, ThinkPads seem to be clear of the Superfish problem as Lenovo only shovelled that crap in to their consumer lines. Hell, you might even get a discount on a ThinkPad because people have an aversion to buying Lenovo HW now.
Latitudes are good competitors (and EliteBooks as well). You are looking for the 6000/7000 series, the 5000 series is lower end.
Only problem I find is that ThinkPads are still the best for keyboard and trackpoint.

 

When you get past the Latitude 3000 series (which is the Dell Business equivalent of the low end HP ProBook line and the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge line), then yes, they are well built, durable, long lasting laptops. I am actually typing this very post on a Dell Latitude E 5510 from 2009. It is an early Core i3 rescued from the town dump. A new keyboard and cleaning it up, and it is running well. I did upgrade it from it's bottom end configuration and upgraded the RAM and hard drive, and installed a built in DVD Super Multi drive. It's stable and reliable to this very day. The Latitudes at work have all been reliable and solid laptops, and the fleet dates back to 2008. So, yes, I recommend them to you without reservation. And thus far, all the work Latitudes we ever bought are still in daily use.

 

I bought my first D830 8 years ago roughly. In the mean-time, I've watched my counterparts who bought XPS and Inspirons replace them twice now, while I'm still chugging away with the D830. Parts are very easy to find. Batteries are available from various Chinese vendors. I rebuilt the LCD to retrofit LED lighting into it.

If you can pick up a decent Latitude on a deal (ie: Dell Outlet, eBay, etc.), chances are, if its like the older Latitudes, you'll get much more life out of it, plus access to premium features like the docking station capability.

Plus since a lot more people, especially serious users, use Latitudes, tech support is easier to come by, especially in the open source world (ie: Linux).

 

I have had no issue with Latitudes and quite a few have passed through my hand so far. I am still recommending Latitude 6000 series to quite a lot of people even used units with ssd intalled. I just feel sturdier than current crops of Latitudes. There is the weight penalty of course. The only time I had to deal with Dell for warranty claim is when I bought a used E6220 that came with a vertical line on screen and that was settled pretty fast by Dell service. I have even bought an E6420 that looked like it had come back from a warzone with broken bezel and worn rubber feets and yet it ran pretty sweet after windows clean install. So to answer the question, yes Latitude is pretty reliable and Dell support is great.

 

re: stuff like superfish, doesn't matter if it's Dell or Lenovo or HP -- it's almost always best to wipe a new machine and put a clean copy of Windows on with the minimum of drivers/utilities that your machine actually needs.

re: buying a machine, if you can get CTO whether it's Dell/HP/Lenovo, it is very often (but no longer always) a pretty big savings to buy the minimum RAM and cheapest hard drive and then upgrade them yourself. Pretty much every "real" Latitude model in recent memory makes it easy; not sure about the 3000 series (I thought they were based on the old Vostros, which were pretty easy, rather than Inspirons.)

I've had very good luck with the Latitude line from the D600 on, and the C600/610/640s I had at various times for work in the early 2000s weren't bad. My wife's E7440 is a sweet, very nicely built system although personally the slow speed of the ULV processor is painful.

Also, for Dell, I've had very good luck with the Outlet, and if you're looking at models that have been out for more than a few months it's usually pretty easy to find exactly what you want. Figure out what you want, wait for them to post coupons, and then move quick and there are some exceptional deals to be had.

 

I've only had one Dell and that was an older Latitude E6510. It felt very solid however the keyboard was a tad bit on the mushy side while the non-backlit seemed more resistant to flex imo. As a fairly consistent business laptop user I could not help but compare the Latitude to a Thinkpad. Near everything was adequate on the E6510- cpu was fast and backlit keyboard was nicely lit (just wish it was more solid) however I terribly missed using the Thinkpad keyboards I am used to. The trackpoint (I find this input component handy) felt more responsive and precise on my Thinkpad laptops compared to the Latitude. In terms of reliability the E6510 presented zero problems for the year that I owned it. I felt in terms of construction it was very solid and would not be surprised to see it still running 7 years from now! Just that keyboard...could not get over it.