Want a macbook pro screen and a thinkpad keyboard on the cheap? E6500

Thanks to the advice of people on this forum, I got a latitude E6500. I thought about posting this in the apple forums, but I figure that I might get flamed.

The macbook pro screen is great, and a key insight was to realize that the latitude E6500 screens are the exact same ones (as the last generation before the unibody macbook pros). I got the AUO screen, and it's great. It is the exact same screen as a macbook pro. I had one, so I know until it broke. A great screen totally changes the entire perception of a notebook in my opinion, especially when using it for multimedia.

I have used a thinkpad before and I loved the keyboard. Newer generation ones that I have seen don't feel as cushy and soft. The E6500 keyboard is every bit as good as the current thinkpad keyboards if you like a softer, spongier feel with good key travel. So if you care about the keyboard alot, the new latitudes are I think tied for the #1 spot with anything else that you can throw out there.

Oh, and the price simply can't be beat.

The backlit keyboard is also a very underrated feature. I would absolutely get this if anyone is hesitating.

The one knock on this laptop is the fan noise. It's not bad, but it's not the most silent one out of the macbook pros and the thinkpads. However, I don't believe that there is inferior cooling or inferior design that makes the E6500 run louder. I think that it's probably just a BIOS setting that Dell has put in there to make sure that the system stays cool at the expense of having more noise. In other words, if Dell didn't mind hot system temps like the macbook pros, then I suppose it could run nearly as quietly. Either way, I do wish the notebook was a bit quieter. I do have the nvidia gpu and am curious if getting the intel gpu would cut down on the noise. I'd also gain some battery life and to be honest, I never use any 3d stuff but just like to have the real gpu for resale purposes and to futureproof the laptop.

But for price/performance, this is the laptop to beat because now I can watch videos, even hulu ones, without intrinsically wishing for more brightness and contrast in the dark scenes. I feel like I've got a 15" hdtv.

 

The Intel GPU would reduce heat quite a bit, as it does run significantly cooler than the 160M. Good to hear that you're so happy with your screen!

 

You have pretty much the same reasons for buying the E6500 as myself. I am very happy with this purchase, and researched it heavily with the competition before making my choice (Macbook Pro 15, Thinkpad T500, etc).

What's the fan noise like and how often does it come on with your nvidia chip? I got the Intel X4500 instead and my fan essentially never comes on. I describe my fan behavior exactly here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4679386&postcount=25

You could also try attempting my "superclean" install and see if that makes the computer run cooler. It's a thread somewhere on the first few pages of this forum.

 

I speak the truth that this is the macbook pro's screen, which is important because I think that there are quite a few people out there who have seen it in an Apple store and gone "wow"...then seen the $2000 price tag and gone "wow". Now you only have to go "wow" once.

I'm sure that there are other screens out there that are great, but my objective was to get the best 15" screen that I could lay my hands on without resorting to paying north of $1500.

I would have gotten a Thinkpad, but I see some T400 screens around campus and there is some sort of frosty cast on them, and it's washed out. Many people have them, but for me, Mr. Latitude is no doubt the best choice.

 

Hmm, tubby, your fan never comes on? Wow, I might just swap it out for one with an integrated chip, if that's true. The fan is not annoying at all if you're just doing word processing, surfing, emailing, etc. It is on, though, in a quiet room. It is showing to be about 2800-3000 rpms.

Play hulu.com, and it cranks up after oh 10 minutes. Play an hd hulu video or an abc hd video, and it cranks to near 3900. I also agree that the fan doesn't seem to know that it can chill out. Using Fn + z does reset the fan and helps.

I used RM clock to undervolt, and it seems to help somewhat, although I am not sure if that's psychological. IK8fan appears to let me control some temperature thresholds, but I'm not convinced that it actually does anything either. I told IK8fan to never turn on and to always use minimum fanspeed, but it seems like when you're playing an hd video, the internals warm up and the fan comes on anyway, leading me to question what IK8fan is doing.

Can I ask you this: When you're watching an HD video, say after 20 minutes, the fan does come on. However, how many rpms is it? If it's 3000, I'll take that any day. If it's 4000, that is pretty loud. If the intel graphics chip allow the system fan to never roar full blast (4000 rpm), then I would switch to integrated for that reason alone.

 

I can't view hulu or abc videos here in Canada, so I tried this 720p youtube flash video in HD:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWDYIWggpPY&hd=1&feature=hd

Using i8kfangui 3.1 with room temperature at around 22 celcius:

- After 1 minute cpu temp peaked at 51 celcius and fan came on
- Fan stayed at around 2784 rpm as CPU gradually dropped to 44 celcius
- GPU was consistently around 46 celcius throughout, peaking at 47
- When the video ended the fan stopped immediately
- At this point CPU dipped below 40 celcius and then idled at 36 celcius
- The video used about 40-45% of the cpu load throughout

Tried replaying the video 3 times and the behavior was exactly the same each time.

 

Nice tests. So you can watch like a 1080p movie for 2 hours and the fan won't ever roar full blast? That sounds great.

 

Actually I would say that the screens on the E6500 are better. You have the option to upgrading to a WUXGA scree, the 15.4" MBPs are stuck on WXGA+

 

The Intel GPU does help keep the heat and fan noise to a minimum. We also don't know for sure that the current nvidia GPUs are free from the packaging problem which has caused problems with the previous generation. The other main contributor is the P series CPU since it has lower consumption than the T series all the way down the operating range - not just at maximum power.

Tubby has both the Intel GPU and a P series CPU plus his tweaked OS and gets outstanding power efficiency.

John