your opinion of latitude E5550? Dependable? FHD?

Need to buy at least 15" for a non-technical person who has been using a A10-powered Gateway 17" for years. Would like to get her into Corporate line Dell Latitude or Thinkpad.

The E5550 and Thinkpad equivalent are in the budget range so debating these two. She will mostly use mouse so the finicky touchpad on Dell may not be an issue.

all opinions solicited

 

There's no reason to think that the E5550 wouldn't be dependable (not a lot of discussion on this forum) but if something goes wrong then spare parts and the service manual are easy to find.

The FHD panel is probably OK (look fthrough any reviews at notebookcheck as they include a technical assessment of the display). I had the later 5570 and the FHD panel was good. However, avoid any 1366 x 768 panels as they tend to be dim and poor quality.

It may be worthwhile installing an SSD now that prices have dropped. Not only would this give a useful boost to responsiveness but also mitigates the risk that the HDD in the computer is past its best. Also, the cooling system would probably benefit from a good clean and repasting.

John

 

gag! I just read this after just ordering a 5570 yesterday, with the hd panel. crud... I tried hard to find ones with FhD but they were fewer and pricier and misconfigured in some cases... i.e one dimm, slow HDD, so the end point of the price [this being for someone else] was unnaturally high. the one that is en route has 2x4gb and a 250 ssd, win 10 pro. I hope it is ok. if not, it does have a strong return policy.

 

We had a lot of 5450s at my work a couple of years ago, and the panels -- both FHD and HD -- are really, really variable. Some were nice and bright, some were really dim and washed out.

Second John's point about the SSD. Sale prices on small SSDs have pretty much cratered, and even the slowest SSD will be better than the standard disks in those.

 

Have had one of these in the super rare FHD, nvidia, backlit keyboard option for a few months picked it up from a liquidation for 150 was super happy, wife has been playing ffxiv and other games constantly for about 4 months and no issues whatsoever. Screen is a little blue, but that's expected from a lower ips color gamut screen, perfectly fine with windows night light on.

 

yeah, I bought an E5450 with the Nvidia GPU. Finding that option was not easy, and it's only marginally better nowadays if you are looking for an Latitude 5000 series laptop with a dGPU (typically, 1 of the ~12 configurations actually have the option of upgrading the GPU, the rest are just IGP-only).

 

Yeah, its a crappy nvidia, but for the price, honestly could not pass it up, needed it for a editing laptop and its perfect, even the 940mx is marginally better, the new 1050ti is a sweet spot it seems these days. So to answer the e5550 original question it is highly reliable, uses little power, because of the new cpu, but honestly if i personally were to get one i would get at least fhd screen, 8gb ram, backlit keyboard, nvidia gpu optional because it magically drives the price up, not even worth the price if you ask me, i could pick a m4700 up for cheaper, at least they have a upgradeable gpu.

 

so, got the E5570 with the cheap HD panel and you were right - it is really annoying. I must say I have seen 15.6's including several trades on my table now, that were worse in terms of viewing angles - all bad, just degrees of awful. the color was ok to untrained eyes, and the brightness ok for indoors of course - who wants to lug a 15 outdoors? wish I had waited longer and got FHD but the lady wanted to get rolling...
I'm about to reco a 7480 for another buyer and will make sure to go for FHD. fortunately i see a couple of viable candidates on ebay

meanwhile in the bargain-bin of the world are a few variants of an HP 14" consumer machine with what is by all accounts a good FHD IPS panel, SSD, 8th gen i3, for 389 new, or 299 on flash-sale at costco.... go figure. while dell/lenovo STILL spec 768 panels as 'normal' in their expensive business models

 

Yeah, it is confusing how consumer trash gets decent panels while significantly more expensive "business grade" stuff is still offered with such horrible panels (sometimes, only offered with low grade panels). The age of docks is long over for Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc, so that excuse doesn't fly anymore, either.

 

Most likely those in charge of corporate ordering aren't those who actually use these machines so they don't realise the implications of saving a few $$$s per machine and if end users have any input on the specifications then they tend to focus on the CPU. It's also probable that many of those who then end up getting tired eyes don't realise that the notebooks were available with better quality displays (they probably assume that such displays are only available with a fruity-named computer brand).

John