New E5440 vs E6440/6430, and HP zBook 14

Hey NBR guys. So, I am finally getting my first (technically, ok second, but more on that later) Dell. I am getting a buisness laptop for work. Perks of finally moving up from my layman positions of near 10 years. I checked them out today, we have a slew of E5440s that just were delivered and one of them has my name on it. Quite excited. Its a nice looking 14" laptop, it should suplement my HP Zbook14 nicely. I don't think we get touch, but they are fairly well spec'd out units. I'll let everyone know my deets later.

So, the story of earlier this month was, that we ordered a new laptop for my job. I was issued by our IT department a "new" Dell E6420. It was a refurb, and we were charged full (1400ish) price for a "new" laptop, so I was a bit upset. Secondly, after the 1-2 day shakedown of downloading work software and encrypting the HD, it was much, much too slow. Task manager showed 120+ processes, this includes all kinds of work software from VPN to microsoft enterprise apps, etc. It really requires a more modern machine. It also chews the battery very quickly.

Can't wait to see the new one. Anyone have experience with these laptops vs each other? I believe the E6440 was also an option, but I don't really get to choose. I'm happy with the 5440 choice we made, either way. I also have a personal HP zbook 14 which I'm going to compare it to. I'll soon Chime in with results.

 

The number of processes isn't a problem unless you are short of RAM. It's the number of processes that are actually loading the CPU for a significant amount of time that is significant.

It can be quite informative to go to the Processes tab in Task Manager, go to View > Select Columns and add CPU Time. Then sort the processes list by CPU Time (which is cumulative since the process started). Mine tells me that Firefox is currently second on the list at 8 hrs 42 min which is 25 x more CPU time than the next program in the list. And that's Firefox with FlashBlock and AdBlock plus to minimise unwanted content from loading the system. Top of the list is the System Idle Process at 253 hours which means that Firefox is averaging around 3% CPU utilisation.

John