DELL E1405 - Personal Notebook Review

14 Pictures Included

I recently purchased a Dell E1405 through the Army Air Force Exchange Store (AAFES), about 1 week ago. I purchased two of them. One for my wife and one for myself. I dont game so this review will not contain that kind of performance info.

14.1 WXGA+ UltraSharp TFT TrueLife
XP Media Center Edition 2005
Intel® Core Proc Duo T2400 (1.83GHz/667MHz/2 X 1MB L2 Cache)
1GB DDR2 SDRAM @ 533MHz
8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW)
60GB Sata 5400RPM
Graphics Media Accelerator 950
4 USB 2.0, S-video, PCMCIA2, 1394, RJ45, RJ11, VGA, and SD/xD, Audio IN/OUT

My total price minus tax was $815

Aesthetics- I like the white on silver, I personally think it looks clean and business like. I dont like flashy XPS type cases or that sort of thing anyway. The keyboard is easy to type on and feels great. I like the fact that it matches my last laptop that was a bit bigger. It is still considered fullsize by my standards and I can type more than 100 wpm on this thing, just a little slower then on a regular keyboard.

Power- The Duo is freakin awsome. Pay the extra 75 bucks and get the 1.8 GHZ, RAM is also a great deal. I have 1 GIG and it loads quick and runs fast. In fact if you can afford it spring for the 2 GIG. You cant go wrong with more ram. I ran this thing with the one ram card at 512 (took out one ram module) and it ran like crap, very slow startup compared to the one gig. Video is a meager 224 MB on board Intel Video 950 but it gets the job done. It will play 3d games more then 2 years old. But dont think you can run Far Cry or any new high power games. This laptop wasnt meant for it. The battery power with an onboard video is what is so nice about this little power house.

Software- There is a lot of garbage on the machine from the factory and I opted for the restore discs for an extra 8 bucks. If you use the original image on the laptop it will restore all the garbage from the factory so I would say get the discs for the cheap insurance. I removed all the garbage on there and run software I already have. I personally like McAfee and use it so that is left up to you but out of the box it will have something like 60 processes running from the get go. I still have 50 running and I tweaked my services.msc file. I still have to do some more work on it to get those processes down some more. I purchased the XP Media Center Edition and love it. With one app (OS) I can run DVD, Music, and Pictures... and more.
I removed all the free Dell Media stuff and music match because I downloaded Win Media Player 11. This MP is hot and recommend it. Go to Microsoft.com and check it out.

LCD- The trulife 14.1" WXGA+ at 1440x900 is nice. It looks absolutely great as all Dell LCDs. I don't think there is a better looking display for it's size out there. I opted for the 14.1 inch instal of the 15.4 or whatever the E1505 is because I needed a more portable, smaller lighter package. I was expecting a 1280x800 display for some reason. Let me tell you, the 1440x900 is great. I know the E1505 offers an even higher TruLife resolution screen, but 1440x900 on a 14.1 inch widescreen is great. It is very bright in any light it seems. Glare on the glossy Trulife is not a problem to me, but some people complain. If you don't like it, don't get the Trulife. My last notebook was a Dell 1100 and it was the matte finish screen. I personally think it was dull and didnt look no where near as good as the TrueLife! Get the Glossy!

Weight- Dell says it weights 5.0-5.3 pounds. It is extremely light compared to my 9.5 lb 1100 Inspiron. I love that this thing is small and compact so it fits anywhere.

Battery- The 6 cell is great and can run 4hrs on a full charge with wi fi off and no CD Rom running. I think I could get two DVD movies in on one battery charge about 3 hrs total movie time. The 9 cell would be worth it and that will be my next buy because I an in the Air Force and fly as a job so I will need the extra power for my long trips to the desert (Iraq) every 4 months.

Upgradeability- There is no upgradeable graphics. This was built with battery life and portability in mind. The hard drive is an easy upgrad along with ram, network cards and processors. Its easily accessed by anyone with a screwdriver, check the pics. No voiding warranty stickers if you do open them up either. The Processor can be upgraded to the 2.12 Duo if you can afford it but its really not neccessary. I love my 1.8 DUO. There is only 1 easily accessible ram slot and it has a 512MB stick already in it for 1gb. So in the future I guess if you wanted to give it 2gb you could, if you wanted to put forth the effort of taking the whole thing apart (which doesn't seem hard at all).

Overall- Its a well built laptop and very portable. That is the key, dont look for this thing to run your super advanced 3d games but if you are on the go and love movies this is it. The plastic on the other hand does feel cheap on the ouside and really its a plus to keep it light but this thing would survive long if you dropped it alot. The internal chassis is aluminum and sturdy. I have already taken it apart and feel that it would take a beating if it had to. The Hard Drive also states that it is specially designed to take hard inpacts, check dells website for more on this.

Other- I have heard some say that the touch pad buttons squeak, this is not the case for me so it may be just a few minor cases.
I have also observed there are two fans in this laptop, one under the backspace key area of the keyboard and one on the processor, both are extremely quiet and at full speed (using bios mod software).
The strike zone printed on the HD lid is there to show you it has shock protection built in.

 

Here are 3 more...

 

And just a few more for good measure...

 

Awesome, thanks for the review! It was great

 

yep it was great thanks alot

 

I agree, great review.

And some good luck as well, it appears the E1405 does NOT have the battery problem ...


* Latitude: D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, D810
* Inspiron: 500M, 510M, 600M, 700M, 710M, 6000, 6400, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 9400, E1505, E1705
* Precision: M20, M60, M70, M90
* XPS: XPS, XPS Gen2, XPS M170, XPS M1710

 

Amen to that

 

I appreciate all the kind comments, just wanted to let people know about how great I think this laptop is.

 

i read some comments on cnet.com and got scared... most say the screen is 'just horrible' - quote
airforceone, please take a look at this: http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_Inspir...ID=7&messageID=1953091&cval=1953091&tag=uolst

read a couple of other comments title from the same website. it seems to be a general issue. is it that bad? the vertical view angle is that...horrible?

 

Thanks for the review. Great info. I reviewed an e1405 a while back and thought it was a fantastic machine for the price. Excellent performance with a 1.66 GHz T2300 (now replaced by the T2300E) and 1 GB RAM. I also reviewed a Gateway M255-E with similar specs, but a 2.0 GHz T2500 and 512 MB RAM, and the lag was really bad with the 512 MB. After using those two machines, I became convinced that a full gig of RAM is essential to get full performance from the Core Duo, at least with the integrated GMA 950 GPU.

 

Im gonna receive my 640M/E1405 on Monday or Tuesday. I could take some pics of the screen and post it if you would like. Otherwise, im sure other people who have had this model for a while can comment

 

I may be a little bias because I own one but I love my screen. I have no complaints and this is my second laptop. I had the matte screen before this and will never go back to the matte. This is a great machine.

 

that would be great. i saw the pics in this thread and things seems to be ok. i was worried about vertical angle. moving your head up and down influencing the way picture is seen.

thx all for the infos

 

Thanks for the review. I was hesitent to buy one, but when i saw one at a Dell stand at the mall i knew i had to have one. This review was also quite helpful in my purchase. I went with the cheapest one i can get, already have a Merom/memory for upgrades