640M/E1405 - The Good, The Bad!

After using this laptop for a little while now I would like to give my opinion on this laptop from the good to the bad.

The Good
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- Battery Life: I'm using the 6 cell and I can easily get well over 4 hours battery life. Very impressive for the T2400 that I got put in mine.

- Build Quality: For the price paid for this item, I honestly consider the build quality very good. There is slight movement if you press down on the lid when its closed. However, its quite robust.

- Touchpad: Quite a nice feel, and inline with any others on the market. Probably not as good as the grainy feel of the HP DV1000 etc, but otherwise good. The buttons are described as "mushy" but this gives them a gentle feeling which I prefer over the click others make.

- Sound Quality, Speakers: I got the Creative audio driver upgrade which may be worth it. It included a lot of extra cofiguration software which I've enjoyed using. The quality of the speakers sounds very good for laptop speakers and get no complaints apart from lacking bass. The only unit which comes directly to mind which offer a little bit better are from HP.

- Speed and Performance: Dual channel 667mhz DDR2, 1.83ghz Duo, the system performs wonderful.

- Wireless: I got the Intel A/G 54G wireless inbuilt. I have found this amazing and generally very stable in a range of tested applications

- Features: This would mostly include the media direct which is a great adition. Something when if the unit is sitting on your laptop, you can be prone to hit the buttons.

The Bad
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- The Screen - How many posts and polls are devoted to this topic? Well yes, it's a detriment of this laptop. There is a noticeable steak of light leakage on the bottom of the screen. I have been told this is less noticeable on the matte screen, but who really wants that over the sexy gloss?

There also seems to be inconsistancy in backlighting in other parts of the screen depending on the angle you view it from. This causes the screen to have reduced viewing angle. The light leakage can be overcome slighty by lowering the screen brightness or changing the angle at which you view the screen from.

Overall, you will only notice it if you watch a DVD with black background or when windows it loading on the black background. General windows usage will not make this noticeable.

- The Optical Drive: This and the screen are the worst part of this unit. The drive is noisy, causes great viabration and actually becomes disturbing if you're alone and trying to watch a DVD with the unit on your lap. I have not had any troubles reading different types of media.

- The Keyboard: The keyboard has a fair reflex to it, and feels more robust than Toshiba and others. Because of this, the keyboard does not feel as responsive or the nice soft touch I've become used to on others. It's by no means bad, it just does not feel comfortable to type with. This is purely a personal opinion, and by no means should be used as a reason not to purchase

- Dell Utilities: The Dell power management/configuration is slighty limited compared to what other companies install on their units, but it still serves is purpose, and everything can still be achieved.

If I can think of anything else, I''ll have edit my post later.

 

I decided to keep mine after I thought I was going to return it because of the light leakage issue with the screen. I went to some retailers (Best Buy/Circuit City) and compared my screen with laptop showroom models the stores were displaying. I honestly saw probably 2 notebooks (both Sonys btw) that had screens that I would choose over my E1405. Very few notebooks had no light leakage at all and the ones that did, did not have noticeably less leakage than my Dell. For the price, I can live with my issues with the E1405's screen.

I also find the build to be surprisingly sturdy, but I can see manufacturing shortcuts all over the notebook. Mainly the bottom of the screen right above the Dell logo, the plastic is rather separated from being flush with the LCD panel in one area. All around the screen the plastic is flush and uniform in distance from the LCD panel. The bottom of the screen where the Dell logo is located is very flimsy when pushed. When I type on the right side of the keyboard the CD/DVD drive rattles on the inside which is annoying. Overall, with all of these manufacturing shortcuts (as I see them) the notebook still feels very sturdy. My girlfriend has an Inspiron 6000 and it is horribly constructed and very creaky and plastic feeling. I was worried the E1405 would be like this, but it is not.

I agree with all of your goods Paulie and your bads.

My overall opinion of my one and a half week old E1405 is that for the price, you can't get better performance. You'll just have to live with a few shortcomings from Dell, which seems to be the norm from this manufacture.

 

I just discovered that one of my keys may be dead on the laptop. I have to press the key twice to make the letter appear? Weird...

 

I agree with all of your pros and cons. However, I have an additional problem I would like to add about the screen, and the main reason mine is going back.

Streaking.

On lighter colored screens, especially the menu areas of programs, there is definitely some sort of pixelated discoloration noticeable. Well, maybe not immediately noticeable, but once I noticed it, it bothered me from that point on.

Also, I thought the keyboard was incredibly noisy, and the trackpad buttons much too soft.

 

The keyboard is very noisy isnt it? I'm tending to take back any good points I stated the more I used this thing. If I send the unit back to be replaced, whats the chance of getting a better one?

 

When I was talking to support last Wednesday about the leakage and the streaks, the guy on the phone guaranteed me that if I sent it back and had them fix it, I would not have the problem again. So I asked him what would happen if it did happen again, and he said I could just get my money back.

So I told him we could just skip the fixing part and go straight to the money back part. Having been on the other side of the phone in these sort of situations, I am surprised he was making such a guarantee. I am sure he doesn't know the guys who would fix it (probably not even in the same country), but he was very adamant about it being fixed 100% to my satisfaction.

I wonder if, when they are fixing it, if they put the time into making it right like they should have when they are building it?