Dell Latitude E4300 Review

The Dell Latitude E4300 is Dell's most powerful ultraportable machine released to date. This 13.3" notebook is powered by low voltage Intel Core 2 Duo processors and boasts an incredible battery life with no compromises in performance.

Dell Latitude E4300 Specifications:

• Intel Core 2 Duo SP9600 (2.53GHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
• Microsoft Windows Vista Business SP2, with downgrade rights for Windows XP SP3 and upgrade rights to Windows 7 Professional
• 13.3" LED WXGA LCD Screen (1280x800)
• 1GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM (upgraded to 4GB)
• 80GB 7200RPM Western Digital 2.5" Hard Drive
• Intel X4500MHD video card
• Internal Fixed DVD+/-RW Optical Drive
• Intel WiFi Link 5300 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Intel Gigabit Ethernet, WWAN Capable
• Backlit Keyboard
• 6-Cell 60WHr Battery, with 6-Cell 48WHr Battery Slice
• 3-Year Warranty with On-Site Technical Support
• Dell E-Port Docking Station, with Dell Flat Panel Monitor Stand
• Dimensions: 12.2" x 8.6" x 1.1"
• Measured Weight: ~ 3.7lbs

The Latitude E4300 starts at $1,349, which is fairly average for an ultraportable business machine. However, we all know that the extra options and features always cost more - this notebook as configured will set you back by a staggering $2,054 before taxes.

Build and Design
Our first impressions of the Dell Latitude E4300 were quite positive. The notebook itself has a small LCD bezel and a tightly integrated chassis design, so not only is the notebook rather thin it also presents the smallest footprint that is possible for a 13.3" notebook. Dell also adopted a much more modern looking design featuring sharp lines and a black finish with the new series. The back of the LCD housing has a brushed aluminum appearance to it, which adds a nice bit of flair to an otherwise safe professional design. While the finish is designed to impress, it is a fingerprint magnet. The black matte finish on the rest of the notebook looks equally sharp, but wears down on and around the edges of the notebook.

Build quality is above average, and quite frankly the construction feels ver solid. The base of the chassis is built from magnesium alloy and packed with parts, resulting in a design that protects its internals well. The right palmrest has a little bit too much flex, but there is little to no flex to be found anywhere else on the base of the chassis. Magnesium alloy is also used in the LCD housing, and the screen housing does a really good job of protecting the screen from impacts. We were never able to produce distortions on the LCD screen. The extra bulge at the top of the LCD lid is for the WWAN antenna. While it sticks out only a little bit, that top bulge had just a little bit of give to it.

The screen hinges are well built, as the display never wiggles yet provides a comfortable level of resistance to movement. When closing the notebook there is no latch for the LCD, it is held shut by magnetic force. The design provides enough resistance that the notebook is not going to open accidentally, but it is not difficult to open the computer up either.

The keyboard is well supported on the Latitude E4300, and there is very little flex to be found so even violent typers should find themselves at ease with how sturdy the keyboard feels. While other Dell Latitude notebooks have a modular bay design to accomodate an optical drive or hard drive or a weight saver module, Dell choose to build in a fixed optical drive so the E4300 will not support two hard drives. Because upgrading the optical drive is more difficult than it would be with other Latitude notebooks, the E4300 starts with a DVD+/-RW optical drive that is capable of everything a consumer needs except perhaps Blu-Ray capability. Fortunately, a fixed Blu-Ray optical drive is available for a not so low price when ordering the computer.

Perhaps the only shortcoming in the design of the Latitude E4300 is the battery. Dell appears to have dropped the 3-cell battery option from their ordering system, leaving only the 6-cell battery which sticks out from the back of the notebook by about half an inch. While I do not mind the extrusion, others may take issue with it. However, we have a difficult time imagining that the 3-cell battery could have provided adaquate battery life so we think the 6-cell is worth it.

The Latitude E4300 also has a wide range of expansion options, available via the docking connector at the bottom. If you need legacy ports not found on the computer, Dell has a legacy port extender for Latitude notebooks. The notebook can be docked to one of two different Latitude series docking stations, and each dock supports up to two external monitors. If the 6-cell battery does not provide enough longevity, a battery slice can also be purchased ($199) that will work in tandem with the standard battery to provide a much longer battery life. The hard drive can be upgraded easily by removing two screws and pulling the drive out, and by removing the middle access panel on the bottom of the notebook both the RAM and Latitude ON cards can be upgraded. WiFi cards and WWAN cards can be installed by removing the corner panel as well.

Screen and Speaker
The Dell Latitude E4300 comes with an LED backlit screen with a native resolution of 1280x800 (WXGA). The screen resolution is a perfect fit for a 13.3" notebook, and the panel looks nice when viewing documents, videos, and other content. The notebook has fifteen distinct levels of screen brightness adjustable by using the Fn+Up or Fn+Down key combinations. The dimmest screen levels are great for indoor viewing and low light conditions, and it was amazing to see that the screen was quite readable in bright outdoor environments when the screen was set to maximum brightness. It gets so bright, in fact, that colors start to wash out a bit on the highest settings.

We normally expect vertical viewing angles to be quite poor on notebook displays (because of the type of LCD technology they use). The E4300 defined a new level of poor. When viewing the screen from above colors quickly wash out and become unreadable, and when viewing the screen from below the screen fades away ever so quickly. Horizontal viewing angles were fortunately fairly good. Viewing the screen from almost any position to the left and right of the notebook still produced a very readable display even though colors would start to wash out.

This section was called "Screen and Speaker" for a reason. The Dell Latitude E4300 comes with one lowly speaker at the front of the notebook. It sounds tinny, there is absolutely no bass, and at the higher ends of the volume range it sounds muddled. It works for business use, it works for those to are listening to audio on the road, but do not expect premium sound out of this notebook.

Keyboard and Touchpad
While there are certainly a lot of reasons to praise the Dell Latitude E4300, the high quality keyboard one of the most prominent reasons. While the layout of the keyboard is slightly different than what can be found in the rest of the Latitude E series, the Dell Latitude E4300 offers the same high quality typing experience as any other Latitude E series notebook with a backlit keyboard. While some Latitude E series notebooks have an option for a non-backlit keyboard, after comparing the backlit versus non-backlit keyboards we can say with confidence that the backlit keyboard offers a superior typing experience. One of the unique features found on the keyboard is, of course, the LED backlights that serve to illuminate the keyboard in dark environments. This backlighting is user adjustable and it can be tied in with the Ambient Light Sensor for automatic backlight adjustments.

Like the previous generation of Latitude notebooks, the keyboard provides just the right amount of tactile feedback and firmness while never flexing under stress. The new keyboard design raises the quality bar - it looks and feels like each key has its own distinctive personal space to it and it is almost impossible to accidentally hit multiple keys. Over time, it actually felt like my typing accuracy and speed was improving.

Perhaps the only drawback of this keyboard is the layout of some of the keys. The half height function keys, and the location of the Home/End/Insert/Delete keys (upper half height row) and the Page Up/Down keys (next to the arrow keys) take a little getting used to. Once we got used to the locations of the Page Up/Down keys it was actually easier to navigate through webpages, documents, and tabbed interfaces.

When comparing this keyboard to the keyboard of other Latitude E series notebooks, they all provide about the same typing experience but it just feels like the E4300's keyboard is a little more firm. If it seems like we cannot stop praising the keyboard, you are right. Best. Keyboard. Ever.

While the touchpad is not bad, it does not provide as stellar as an experience as the keyboard does. The touchpad itself is quite smooth, but it felt like there was just a little input lag on the touchpad. When using the touchpad, occasionally the touchpad would randomly stop working for a moment or two. It does not happen often enough to be a serious issue, and the problem always corrects itself, but I have to be a tough grader on a machine with this high a cost.

The touchpad redeems itself with a few extra features. Having two sets of mouse buttons is a plus, as is the third mouse button found on the upper row of touchpad buttons. Dell also includs a pointer stick in the middle of the keyboard. Perhaps the best feature about the touchpad is what Dell calls 'circular scrolling.' When moving your finger up or down the scrolling area on the touchpad, if you keep moving your finger in a circular fashion the touchpad will continue to scroll through the active window on your desktop. The direction of the scroll can be changed just by alternating the direction of circular movement as well. The touchpad supports both horizontal and vertical scrolling, which means that in combination with circular scrolling any document is going to be easily navigable.

Ports and Features
Despite not having a lot of real estate to work with, Dell managed to include a surprisingly useful array of ports though we wished a third USB port could have been included. One USB port, one combination USB/eSATA port, VGA out, SmartCard reader, SD card reader, ExpressCard/34, audio in and out, Firewire-400, 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) Ethernet LAN, and a Kensington lock slot are available on the machine. It would have been nice to have had a DisplayPort or DVI output instead of a VGA output, but we suppose VGA out is still an important feature for business notebooks.

Left: VGA, USB/eSATA, fan vent, and SmartCard Reader


Front: SD card reader


Right: ExpressCard/34, DVD+/-RW, audio out, audio in, Firewire-400, and USB


Back: Gigabit Ethernet, Battery, AC Power Input, Kensington Lock Slot

Dell also has two docking station solutions for the new Latitude E series notebooks, one of which is the E-Port Replicator that was included with our unit. With the docking station, the E4300 can be transformed into a full desktop workstation that supports up to two digitally connected monitors.

Left: 3x USB, audio in, audio out

Front: Dell Docking Connector

Right: Kensington Lock Slot, Laptop Locking Mechanism

Back: Connector for additional Dell docking products, eSATA/USB, Gigabit Ethernet, 2x USB, VGA, DVI, DisplayPort, AC Power Input

<!--nextpage--><!--pagetitleell Latitude E4300 Performance, Benchmarks and Conclusion-->

Performance and Benchmarks
The Dell Latitude E4300 might be a small notebook, but it packs a big punch thanks to the 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, and the Western Digital Caviar Black 80GB 7200RPM drive. While the laptop can only be configured with the Intel 4500MHD IGP, graphics performance with the laptop is certainly adaquate for any non-gaming application. Multimedia performance was certainly good even without a dedicated graphics card, as we had no issues displaying 720P content or 1080P content that was scaled down to the LCD's native resolution.

The 80GB 7200RPM hard drive was certainly fast (perhaps the fastest laptop drive I have personally tested to date), but the limited storage capacity could be a problem for users that need to use a lot of applications and store a lot of data on the drive. The E4300 by default comes with a 160GB 5400RPM drive for $10 less, and hard drive upgrades are reasonably priced. But if you want to abandon the traditional hard drive for a solid state drive, users should be advised to purchase an aftermarket SSD to save money and/or get a higher performing SSD than the (most likely under-performing Samsung) OEM SSD that Dell will include.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

3DMark06 measures overall graphics performance for gaming (higher scores mean better performance):

HDTune storage drive performance test:

Heat and Noise
The Dell Latitude E4300 is certainly a performer, but having this much power inside a small frame presents some design challenges. The notebook itself only has a single fan that vents out to the side and bottom of the notebook, and during normal use temperatures hovered in the mid 80's.

However, the single fan can only provide so much cooling power during our extreme stress test where parts of the E4300 soared into the triple digit temperatures. The images below show the external temperature readings in degrees Fahrenheit while stressing the CPU, GPU, and hard drive at the same time. It is hot enough that you do not want to place it on your lap, but fortunately the keyboard and touchpad remain at acceptable temperature levels. It might be a good idea to stay away from the fan vent if running intensive tasks on the computer, as the ambient air coming out of the vent topped 110F.

In an office or home setting, running your typical tasks, the laptop was as quiet as a mouse. The only time the fan was even noticably intrusive was during the extreme stress tests, when the fan was running at full tilt. Even then, it was not too loud nor was there any high pitched whine.

Battery Life
Dell built in a handy array of useful power saving features with the Latitude E series notebooks. The Dell Control Panel is your portal to extreme power management where it is possible to lower the refresh rate of the LCD screen, completely deactivate the power hungry optical drive, automatically turn on/off Windows Aero, and selectively turn off or power manage most of the ports on the notebook. It does not hurt that the Dell Latitude E4300 has an LED backlit screen either, which uses less power than CCFL backlighting found in most other notebooks.

Latitude notebooks have traditionally had support for running two batteries in tandem, and the Latitude E series continues this tradition with the "battery slice." It fits on the bottom of the notebook and adds about a quarter inch to the thickness of the laptop. It adds a significant amount of weight to the machine, but the extra battery life is worth it if longevity is essential.

Dell also includes a program called the Dell Control Panel with its Latitude E series notebooks. It is a very useful program that allows users to selectively shut down or reconfigure peripherals on the notebook, to enable users to get the most of of their battery. Even though it sometimes forgot one or two settings after resuming from standby, it clearly demonstrates its use during our battery tests.

After four really long battery tests, it is clear to us that the Dell Latitude E4300 is a winner in this department. The results are almost unbelieveable for a notebook of this size.

Standard Battery, All Power Savings	6 hours 31 minutes
Standard Battery and Battery Slice, All Power Savings	12 hours 23 minutes
Standard Battery, No Power Savings	3 hours 10 minutes
Standard Battery and Battery Slice, No Power Savings	5 hours 45 minutes

During the tests with power savings enabled, the screen was at 33% brightness, wireless was on, Windows 7 was set to the 'Power Savings' power profile, and all the power savings features in Dell Control Panel were enabled (except the one where the LCD screen automatically reduces the backlight level during periods of inactivity) while we casually browsed the internet and worked on general office tasks like writing this review. With a maximum battery life of 12 hours and 23 minutes, all day computing is certainly an option with the E4300.

Tests with no power savings were more intense for the notebook. No power savings features were enabled, Windows 7 Aero was running and the power profile was set to 'High Performance,' the LCD backlight was set to 100%, and we watced the DVD movies the entire time to keep the machine actively processing while we edited documents. Flash games were also playing in the background to further stress the processor. Despite the heavier workload, the E4300 is more than capable of lasting through several feature films during long distance travels.

Conclusion
The Dell Latitude E4300 is a power house of a notebook that is as small as can be. Designed for business use, built with quality in mind, and can handle any office or media related task thrown at it. It has an incredible battery life, great power saving capabilities, and the wide range of display brightnesses and keyboard brightnesses are great features not found in most notebooks. The speaker is a bit below average, the touchpad slightly above average at best, and the chassis has one or two flex points that should not be there in a notebook at this price range. Even with those flaws in the design, there is a lot to love about the Dell Latitude E4300 should you need the power, portability, or longevity of one of the smallest Latitude notebooks released to date.

Pros:

• Above average build quality, lightweight
• Best keyboard and useful touchpad features
• Extremely long battery life

Cons:

• Subpar speaker
• Twitchy touchpad
• High priced upgrades

Related Articles:

• Dell Latitude E6400 Review
• Dell Latitude 2100 Review
• Dell Latitude XT2 Review
• Dell Latitude E6400 XFR Review

 

Thanks for the review of the E4300 Greg!

I currently use the E4300 and love it for its battery life, backlit keyboard, very good screen and for the amazing price I got it at Dell Outlet. I would have to disagree on the keyboard, I'm really missing the ThinkPad keyboard and don't agree the key travel is good nor is the tactile feedback pleasant. I also get quite a lot of flex on the right hand side of my keyboard to the point that it's mushy there, so I probably need to look into whether I have a seating issue.

The build quality is good, but I am getting a lot of blemishes showing up on the lid area after a few months of usage. The palm rests could definitely be more stiff, but they don't sink under the normal pressure of my wrists resting on them, so it's a non-issue.

Another USB port would definitely be nice, just yesterday I had to decide which accessory to pull out (wireless mouse or memory stick) to connect my camera via USB for transferring pictures.

My favorite feature has to be the screen and backlit keyboard. The screen is amazingly bright and a wonderful resolution for a 13.3" notebook. It's truly the perfect form factor and screen resolution for my needs when on the go, having another monitor when at a desk is of course a great help to productivity. The backlit keyboard is something I can't live without now, I hope that Lenovo gets a clue and realizes the ThinkLight doesn't hold a candle to the backlit keyboard solution while working in a dimly lit room (as I am now). I suppose it's an expensive design decision to put a backlit keyboard in, but I think if you can put it in as an extra option it's a good one.

While the price for the E4300 new is quite high, I encourage people to look at the Dell Business Outlet to get some stunning deals on this laptop if you're interested.

 

I did not know they still made HDD's that small.

You might want to add the graphics in the top description.

 

I also recently bought and E4300 ( this one) from a reseller of Dell Outlet stock. It was without Windows pre-installed (so less expensive) and it is now happily running Windows 7.

I've very happy with my purchase although the one feature it is lacking is a backlit keyboard. Two USB ports is definitely one too few. The left USB port doubles up as eSATA while the right USB port supports PowerShare. It offers the same performance as my E6400 except the display is of lower resolution. Bettery life is also very similar to the E6400. The E4300 should do better because the GS43 chipset has various power saving options but the is no evidence that they are being used. It's disappointing that Dell didn't use the identical battery for both. They look similar but the connectors are in different places.

The E4300's weight with 6 cell battery is 1.78kg / 3.91lb according to my digital scales. That's just over 0.5kg less than the E6400.

My keyboard is a little hollow on the right side. I had assumed that this was a consequence of the non-backlit keyboard.

The E4300 feels very robust and will make a good choice for anyone who wants to get a new notebook before the screens all reduce in height down to 768 pixels.

John

 

Very good review, I've been casually looking in the outlet at these. Great deals to be had, as Andrew stated. Sucks that they haven't made additional/thicker rubber padding on the lid bezel to avoid the marring of the bezel/palmrest that occurs on apparently more than the E6400.

EDIT: Two USB's? That could be a dealbreaker depending on if you care about using a hub at your desk...

 

These are quite a bit better than the previous Latitudes which were pretty much junk. But I think the Thinkpad is a better notebook and a better deal. Even though Thinkpads aren't quite as solid as they used to be.

 

Question: How do you USE the a USB accessory with the USB/eSATA combo?

I feel like can't simply plug in my USB cord.

 

I sometimes wonder if this all comes down to personal preference then. I've had a few E6400's and E4300's come across my desk in the last few months, and they're all just a little different. But none of them are bad by any means. Compared to the keyboards of machines you'll find in Best Buy though, both the Latitudes and Thinkpads are far superior.

This is a 'feature' that we've been complaining to Dell about for a full year now. Dell has not done anything about it, but at least it is not a functional issue or anything. I would hope that the next refresh of the Latitude E notebooks solves it, and I am going to guess that we might see the E6410 or E4310 in six months time or so.

I make do when I'm on the road, but at home that is what the docking station is for.

I've been bouncing around for years trying to find the right form factor notebook for me. I've tried 15.4", tried 17", 12", 14", and finally a business 13.3". The 13.3" is perfect if you ask me, at least for my needs.

These new docking stations are amazing though. eSATA, up to two monitors can be connected, the full works. You no longer need a desktop system to drive two high resolution monitors anymore.

Enough said here. As previously noted, I've had a few E4300's grace my desk recently. The one I'm currently using (not the one reviewed) was purchased from Dell Outlet for $850. Specifications between the review unit and my current unit were almost identical (I've got the 2.4GHz processor and no extra battery now) and I'm loving it. Its an awesome deal at $850, and I think it would still be a good buy for these specs around $1500 or so. But $2000...it is a little high for a graduate student.

We fixed the specs list, happy now ? I was surprised that there was an 80GB option, but I suspect there is a place for everything. Fastest hard drive I think I have reviewed yet.

There are ways around that, including installing your own pads for cheap. John's had a few successful experiments with electrical tape I believe.

If you really need more than two USB devices on a desk (which is certainly acceptable), and I'd strongly consider getting the docking station. That way you can just dock the laptop in a single action and plug in your power, all USB peripherals, monitors (if you have any), everything at once. This is easily one of the most useful features, and one of the big reasons, for considering a business notebook.

I personally do not have experience with the Thinkpad machines, but from what I hear build quality on them has declined just a little bit since Lenovo took them over. But from all the indications I have read, the Latitude notebooks and Thinkpad notebooks are neck-and-neck in terms of build quality now.

You might find a post or two from me about this on the forum from me, but recently I had the pleasure of watching an E6400 on standby fly out of a backpack and crash onto hard tile about four feet down. Aside from the notebook acquiring a few new scratches on the surface, the notebook itself was perfectly functional and booted right up. No hard drive damage, no motherboard damage, nothing except some cosmetic damages.

The people I know that have experience with both the Latitude D and Latitude E notebooks actually think the D's were built better. I'm not so sure about that anymore, I'm starting to think the E's are the superior breed from Dell's lineup.

I will say that the circular scrolling on the E4300 seriously rocks. I'll put up with the ever so slightly touchy touchpad drivers for this feature.

 

Line it up and push firmly. It works for me. Do you want a photo as proof?

John

 

Yeah, the eSATA/USB combo port is a little tight for USB devices. But it works.

 

Hey greg, nice review! Thanks!

 

I think it depends on what ThinkPad you're talking about, the ThinkPad T400s (my favorite notebook on the market right now) and the ThinkPad X301 are better crafted than the E4300 and E6400, but they also cost more. There's no elite Dell Business series notebook to compete with those ThinkPad models at the moment, until the Z-series is available that is. I agree that the Latitude build quality is close to the regular non-premium ThinkPads such as the T400.

 

Nice review Greg!

Im looking for a laptop in the 13inch segment (or there around). Started off with the E4300, went to the HP Elitebook 2530p, back to the E4300, onwards to the E6400 (was to big), moved on to the Lenovo T400 (too big again), went on to the Lenovo X200 and now I'm wondering if the 12 inch screen might be too small for me.

Lenovos are also really expensive in Norway where as Dell are reasonable. If I didnt have a limit to my budget I'd go with the Lenovo X301 but that is about 3400 dollars here!

Now I'm leaning back for the E4300 again as I probably cant go any smaller than 13 inch for my needs (alot of excel and spss) and I want a sturdy buisness machine.

I've heard alot of negativity about the heat that the E4300 produces. It seems from your review that it's not bad at all during day-to-day tasks but I do alot of calculations (SPSS) and work with quite large chunks of data, how would this effect the heat? (I know next to nothing about computers).

My current laptop gets so hot I cant even have it in my lap so this is a big issue for me.

Again, great review!

 

nice review. I have the 3 cell battery in my E4300 and I have no problems getting 3 to 3:15 of battery life running Windows 7 with a 64gb SuperTalent SSD and a 500gb WD BEVT in the optical bay using a Newmodeus caddy.

 

Thanks for the tip John and Greg.

I overcame my fear and finally got it to work.

 

Thanks for the review. I'm currently using a T400 thinkpad, and have always been intrigued by the dell latitude line. Especially the all black sleek look of the new E series. Backlit keyboard also sounds like a great feature.

As Andrew mentioned the thinklight isn't very effective and kind of blinds you when you use it.

I'm really interested in seeing how the build quality of the screen and chassis of T400 stacks up with the E4300 and E6400 models. Dell definitely has the edge over Lenovo in terms of customer support and service.

 

To add, I really like my E4300. It gets great battery life and is very well built.

The keyboard is very high quality, as is the matte screen. My ONLY problem with the E4300 is touchpad. My 3 year old Inspiron 6400 had a better touchpad (of course it was a Synaptics), which I think is unacceptable for this sort of machine. But, it's certainly not a deal-breaker.

 

"However, we all know that the extra options and features always cost more - this notebook as configured will set you back by a staggering $2,054 before taxes."

Am I reading this right? 2 grand for 1GB ram and a 80GB hard drive?!

 

I've got to disagree with you on this point. Though a different system, I tried the M4400 out about 6+ months ago, and it had what I'm guessing was the same touchpad problem. The ALPS touchpad in it would occasionally "freeze up" for a few seconds. The problem was particularly reproducible if I kept moving my finger across it continuously in a circular fashion. Having used a couple of Thinkpads with flawless Synaptics touchpads, I found my M4400 ultimately unusable, due to this single flaw, and returned it to Dell. I'd seen threads from other users with the same problem, and they had spent several weeks (with Dell hardware replacements) trying to resolve their issue, unsuccessfully. It sounds like Dell or their touchpad parts supplier still has some quality control problems here. If you are a frequent touchpad user, I would be cautious with possibly buying into this tricky to find, tricky to resolve problem.

 

Minor nitpick.

"...no compromises in performance." doesn't really line up with integrated graphics.

 

I say it does as it's meant as a portable buisness notebook, not a gaming machine or a stationary workhorse.

 

I have the Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300 2.26GHz processor in my E4300, so it's slower than Greg's, but I rarely have any heat issues with the laptop even when the processor is at 80% - 100% for an extended period. The only time the heat builds up intolerably is if I'm blocking the vent in some way or the room is very warm that I'm working in. My office tends to be cold, so it's a non-issue when working on a desk there.

 

@Matt,

don't feel bad, I had the same issue. When I first got my machine I was so confused that my USB mouse wouldn't "fit", so I assumed I had just read the specs wrong or something. If people think having 2 USB ports is annoying, try living with one! Ha- it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I got up the courage to just line it up and shove after John corrected me in the Dell forum. It's tight, but it will fit.

 

Off topic question - Does anyone know of any stores that carry floor models of dell latitudes? I live in the Toronto area in Canada, so any suggestions around my locale would be great.

Thanks.

 

As noted in the review, it only gets hot with everything running at full load. It does warm up when pushing the CPU, but it was not abnormally high by any means. I can do a thermal measurement of the laptop with only the processor at 100% and post it in a little while.

Awesome. The Dell machines seem to, at least after reviewing John's E6400 review and my notes on my own old E6400, get about one hour per cell of battery.

I have never heard any stories about a Thinkpad or Latitude having "bad" build quality. I would consider the other factors (price, service, weight, battery life, etc) when debating between a Latitude and Thinkpad.

That being said, I did watch a E6400 crash to the floor and not complain at all. I suspect that the E4300 has a similar quality about it.

The touchpad was one of the only complaints I have had about the entire Latitude lineup from Dell now. It wouldn't be complaint from me if I did not use my notebook almost my entire working day. Even then, it is still not a dealbreaker. Just thumbing the touchpad when it gets confused seems to solve the issue when it happens.

BUT, take a look at the rest of the notebook's features. Almost all OEM's markup RAM and hard drive upgrade prices, so I focus on other features when ordering. I could have gotten a similarly performing notebook without the battery, monitor stand, or a processor upgrade and shaved another $350 off of the system price. If you already have a copy of Vista or W7 that you can use, knock another $100 off the computer.

Dell's asking price for 4GB of RAM is $150, when I can order it myself from NewEgg for around $80. Hard drive prices are about acceptable, until you get to the overpriced SSD options.

To be fair, this E4300 was a new replacement provided to me when my E6400's motherboard started developing problems. Issues like that happen sometimes, so I am not going to fault Dell for that, but I do expect timely service and a quick resolution. They replaced the entire system, with one of an entirely different model, at my request. That is service, and that is one of the reasons I keep buying Dell machines. The laptop provided was ordered to (almost) the exact same specifications as my original E6400.

You pay for the portability, and for the business-grade build, features, and design. Head over to the Lenovo website and look up their X300, which starts at $1889. It might have a slightly higher resolution, but you are getting a 1.4GHz processor, a 3-cell battery, a ONE year warranty (not three like Dell's), and are being forced to pay for a Samsung SSD that does not perform as well as the latest drives from Intel and OCZ. You can pay another $200 for the next day onsite warranty if you want it though. It does not include the docking station, or a monitor stand, or a second battery that you could have gotten by spending $1900 with Dell.

Yes, there are other 13.3" machines out there...but few, if any, are business quality with business features and service. And if you don't like the price, Dell Outlet will take care of that for you.

I had the same problems with my E6400, but driver upgrades have really helped resolve (or at least minimize) the issue.

Not everyone plays games, Zizard. Why do people think a notebook cannot perform well without dedicated graphics? No compromises in battery life, I say!

Everyone's needs are different.

Dell nixed their kiosks a while back, and that might have been the only way to see a Latitude in person. I don't think you'll find them in a store but I'll leave my Canadian-born members of the forum answer this for you.

 

I don't plan to try the drop test but I'm sure that if I dropped either onto my foot I would have and injured foot.

The Samsung PB-22J SSD is a very competent performer and the one I bought for my E6400. It might be slightly behind the best on transfer rates but is very power-efficient.

I have bought one notebook during the past many years which had dedicated graphics only because the rest of the specs seemed to fit my needs. However, increased heat and reduced battery life caused by the dedicated GPU meant I didn't keep it long. It is worthwhile emphasing that the the Intel GM45 has 3D performance similar to the GeForce 7400M while also including hardware support for H.264 HD playback.

John

 

Great review!

Not surprised about the speakers. Dell seems to always have a problem in this regard. I can still remember my E1505(Shivers)

 

Agreed!

This was an excellent review Greg ... I agree about the difficulty finding a good quality 13.3 inch machine, though. I am looking at purchasing one soon - the next week or so, and have been curious about the E4300. Recently purchased an E5400 for a co-worker and was quite surprised by how nice a machine it was.

The other machine (a little slower cpu wise but comparable battery life wise) I have been considering in the Asus UL30....

 

Actually you are right. I was thinking of the previous generation of Dell laptops. The D's aren't bad. Not great, but not bad.

I know a developer for a different consulting company whose company bought a bunch of these E4300's when they first came out. They had a lot of hardware/software functionality issues with them. Sounds like those have been fixed.

"Quote:
Originally Posted by technical_guy
Thanks for the review. I'm currently using a T400 thinkpad, and have always been intrigued by the dell latitude line. Especially the all black sleek look of the new E series. Backlit keyboard also sounds like a great feature.
I'm really interested in seeing how the build quality of the screen and chassis of T400 stacks up with the E4300 and E6400 models. Dell definitely has the edge over Lenovo in terms of customer support and service."

Lenovo is much higher rated for support over Dell. It's not even close. I know of multiple global sized companies that I have worked at as a consultant that switched from Dells because of inconsistent quality and terrible support. This is before the current generation of Dell business laptops. These are companies that have 70 or 80 thousand laptops minimum. I am currently consulting at American Express and the T400 is the standard laptop there. Its OK, better than most, not as solid as my T43 and T61 that I received from Motorola when I consulted there. I still have those laptops and if you look at them and the T400 side by side you can see build quality is not as solid and the plastics seem a little cheaper. But Thinkpads from IBM were much more expensive than from Lenovo so something had to give.

Backlit keyboards should be standard on all but the cheapest laptops these days in my opinion.

 

Thanks for the input/perspective. I'll take your word for it that Lenovo might have better service on a large scale basis when dealing with global/transnational companies. But I think my opinion represents the general consensus for the everyday independent consumer looking for individual smaller scale customer support.

And I remember that the T43 was produced by IBM, but the T61 was definitely manufactured after Lenovo took over, and it was around the same price as the T400, but with a better build.

 

I also completely agree that backlit keyboards should be standard - it's just so much more practical.

 

Dell needs to open a outlet thing in Canada... or lower the price here because it's ridiculous especially with our dollar so high now.

 

Yeah the prices for Dell are ridiculously high in Canada... it's more than what the exchange rate would dictate, especially with the Canadian dollar being so strong over the past few years in comparison to the US dollar.

 

Regarding the touch pad please install these driver mentioned here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=363610 it has fixed the problem for me.

 

I don't think my complaints are even close to being as bad as some describe in that thread, but I'll check those drivers out tonight and report back regarding my experience.

 

Very nice and informative review Greg!

Is it possible to know what date e4300 was manufactured when buying?

I am thinking of buying one not directly from a dealer so my concern is not get it from the first batches. Because a lot of people seem to have hardware
and software issues from the first series, but now it seems to be fixed..

 

@spixas: The first few months worth of E4300's had some kind of incompatibility or stability problem related to motherboard and processor, I do remember that. I'm not sure how to check if the E4300 you are looking at was manufactured before or after the problem was solved. The best thing I can suggest is to try and see when the warranty started (by using the system tag). Anything manufactured after May or June was okay, if I remember correctly.

 

I would also add that the E4300 underwent some significant re-engineering early in its life. The October 08 review has a one piece cover on the bottom (as on the E6400) but all the recent E4300s have separate covers over HDD, RAM, etc.

Whatever problems the E4300 has early in its life have been put behind it.

John

 

Thanks for your input. I will doublecheck warranty and covers before buying

 

Recently borrowed this computer from a friend and played with it for a few hours. The touchpad seems to be gimmicky enough to not want to buy this machine. Played around with the settings and was able to get it to work pretty well but still wasn't working perfect.

 

There is not a day that goes by where the touchpad does not get confused...but then again I'm usually using the computer for 6-8 hours a day. I will say that updating the drivers would probably help, there have been noticeable improvements.

I will say though, that I still do not regret getting the E4300. And now another person in my family has an E4300, and they're also happy with the machine.