Dell Latitude E6400 Review

by Jerry Jackson

The Dell Latitude E6400 is a 14" laptop targeted towards businesses that need good performance, solid design, and a commonality of parts for an entire workforce. This notebook competes against such notebooks as the HP EliteBook 6930p and Fujitsu LifeBook S7220. The E6400 offers a wide range of hardware configurations, as well as Solid State Drives (SSDs) for the businesses that require extreme ruggedness and extreme performance. Should your company rush out and purchase the latest generation of Dell business notebooks? We took a closer look to find out.

Our review unit of the Dell Latitude E6400 came with the following options:

• Windows Vista Business (32-bit)
• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P9500 (2.53GHz)
• 2GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM (maximum capacity 8GB)
• 160GB Hitachi HDD (7200rpm)
• 14.1" diagonal widescreen matte TFT LCD display at 1440x 900 (WXGA+, matte)
• 256MB nVidia Quadro NVS 160M (256MB dedicated plus shared memory)
• 8x DVD (+/-R double layer) drive
• Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN (802.11a/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.1
• Dimensions: 1.1-1.3"(H) x 13.1(W) x 9.37"(D)
• Weight: 5.56 lbs
• 90W 100-240V AC adapter
• 9-cell (85Wh) Lithium Ion battery
• Price as tested: $2,148 (starting price: $1,139 ... $879 after instant savings)
  

Build and Design

Unlike the previous generation of Dell Latitude noteboks that featured rounded edges and curves, the Dell Latitude E-series features "down to business" industrial design. The chassis is entirely made of magnesium alloy with plenty of 90-degree edges and sharp angles. While the look is reasonably modern, it's also a little "old school" and could be mistaken for a 5-year old laptop from a distance. Still, the build and design speak volumes in terms of the overall durability of this notebook.

During testing no plastic creaks or squeaks could be heard thanks to the magnesium alloy structure. The entire bottom shell is a metal alloy which gives the laptop a strong footprint on your desk, and gives enough strength to resist bending if you hold the laptop by the edge of the palm rest walking around the room. The only downside to the chassis is that the alloy is thinner than expected in a few locations (more on that later). Another minor issue we noticed is that the bottom access panel on the E6400 really needs one extra screw on the bottom right corner next to the hard drive bay. The magnesium allow base plate smacks up against that corner of the notebook and makes an annoying metal tapping noise if you're typing on an uneven surface.

The heavy use of magnesium alloy carries over to the lid of the notebook, which has an attractive "brushed metal" design that isn't actually brushed metal but rather a painted surface. This immitation brushed metal surface is available in black, blue, or red to give businesses (and their employees) a way to customize the look of their business notebook. The finish itself seems quite durable and should survive years of use and abuse.

In addition to the overall design of the notebook itself, it's worth mentioning the new docking station for the E-series Latitude notebooks. Most businesses will likely use the E6400 with a docking station and an external monitor so that employees can have a mobile laptop when traveling and have a "desktop" computer at the office. Dell made a few changes to the Latitude docking station this year. In addition to relocating some ports they also added an extra USB port on the side and provide new DisplayPort connections for the latest external displays.

Screen

The matte WXGA+ (1440x900) screen on the Dell Latitude E6400 is absolutely beautiful. No dead pixels were found during testing, and backlight bleed while noticed on some dark screens was minimal. Colors were vibrant despite the matte screen and the additional benefit of matte screens is the lack of reflection in an office environment. Wide viewing angles made the screen look sharp even at oddly contorted angles. Backlight adjustment was very broad, allowing me to adjust low enough for darker room settings, and bright enough to still be readable in sunlight or a bright office.

One minor negative regarding the screen is that the notebook lid offers less than ideal protection for the screen. Although the allow lid is quite durable and should protect the lid from most impacts, the thin allow does flex and created "ripples" on the screen whenever pressure was allied to the back of the screen The release latch was smooth and unlike most latches on budget notebooks required little effort to release.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard and palm rest structure is solid, but the thin alloy used in the palmrests does flex a little when pressure is applied. Pressing down very firmly, the keyboard suffers from virtually zero flex and is a nice improvement over the older Dell Latitude D630.

The keyboard is very comfortable to type on, and gave just the right amount of response for each key press. Key travel is similar to most business notebooks with just a bit less clicking sound than what we hear on ThinkPads in our office. The keyboard layout was not cramped at all, and the keyboard backlighting allowed for typing in a dark room.

The Alps touchpad has a nice smooth texture and is reasonably responsive, but could be improved. Lag time and accuracy were worse than what we've seen on many competing business notebooks. The size of the touchpad surface was large enough for comfortable control and the two touchpad buttons spanned the full length of the touchpad, and each had a soft click when pressed. The touchpoint/trackpoint located in the center of the keyboard is a nice improvement over the touchpoint on the older D630, but again we found the touchpoints on business notebooks from Lenovo and HP to be more responsive and accurate. On the bright side, the touchpoint includes three mouse buttons for better control with tabbed web browsing.

Next to the touchpad on the right palmrest you'll also notice a SmartCard contact reader ... allowing employees to use their SmartCard security badges with their notebook without having to physically insert the SmartCard inside the notebook.

Performance and Benchmarks

The Dell Latitude E6400 as configured has more than enough speed and storage space to handle most users needs. The high-end Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 and nVidia Quadro NVS 160M combined with a reasonably fast hard drive make this laptop an excellent performer, for both lightweight multimedia uses and number crunching. Below are benchmarks to give you an idea of how this laptop might compare up against other notebooks on the market.

WPrime 32M comparison results

wPrime is a program that forces the processor to do recursive mathematical calculations, the advantage of this program is that it is multi-threaded and can use both processor cores at once, thereby giving more accurate benchmarking measurements than Super Pi.

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Dell Latitude E6400 (Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 @ 2.53GHz)	30.497s
HP EliteBook 8530w (Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 @ 2.53GHz)	30.919s
Lenovo T400 (Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.8GHz)	27.410s
Lenovo T500 (Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.8GHz)	27.471s
Lenovo T61 (Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2.0GHz)	42.025s
Dell Vostro 1500 (Intel Core 2 Duo T5470 @ 1.6GHz)	53.827s
HP Pavilion dv6500z (AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 @ 2.0GHz)	40.759s
Systemax Assault Ruggedized (Core 2 Duo T7200 @2.0GHz)	41.982s
Toshiba Tecra M9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @2.2GHz)	37.299s
HP Compaq 6910p (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2GHz)	40.965s
Sony VAIO TZ (Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76.240s
Zepto 6024W (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2GHz)	42.385s
Lenovo T61 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.705s
Hewlett Packard DV6000z (Turion X2 TL-60 @ 2.0GHz)	38.720s

PCMark05 comparison results:

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Dell Latitude E6400 (2.53GHz Intel P9500, Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M 256MB)	5,780 PCMarks
HP EliteBook 8530w (2.53GHz Intel T9400, Nvidia Quadro FX 770M 512MB)	6,287 PCMarks
Lenovo T400 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, ATI Radeon 3470 256MB GDDR3)	6,589 PCMarks
Lenovo T400 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, Intel X4500)	N/A
Lenovo T500 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, ATI Radeon 3650 256MB GDDR3)	7,050 PCMarks
Lenovo T500 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, Intel X4500)	5,689 PCMarks
Lenovo T61 Standard Screen (2.0GHz Intel T7300, NVIDIA NVS 140M 256MB)	4,839 PCMarks
Dell Vostro 1500 (1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5470, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS)	3,585 PCMarks
Dell Inspiron 1420 (2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS)	4,925 PCMarks
Sony VAIO FZ (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100)	3,377 PCMarks
Dell XPS M1330 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS)	4,591 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad X61 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100)	4,153 PCMarks
Lenovo 3000 V200 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100)	3,987 PCMarks
Lenovo T60 Widescreen (2.0GHz Intel T7200, ATI X1400 128MB)	4,189 PCMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	4,234 PCMarks

3DMark06 comparison results:

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
Dell Latitude E6400 (2.53GHz Intel P9500, Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M 256MB)	1,818 3DMarks
HP EliteBook 8530w (2.53GHz Intel T9400, Nvidia Quadro FX 770M 512MB)	5,230 3DMarks
Lenovo T400 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, ATI Radeon 3470 256MB GDDR3)	2,575 3DMarks
Lenovo T400 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, Intel X4500)	809 3DMarks
Lenovo T500 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, ATI Radeon 3650 256MB GDDR3)	4,371 3DMarks
Lenovo T500 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, Intel X4500)	809 3DMarks
Lenovo T61 Standard Screen (2.0GHz Intel T7300, NVIDIA NVS 140M 256MB)	1,441 3DMarks
Dell Vostro 1500 (1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5470, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS)	1,269 3DMarks
Dell Inspiron 1420 (2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB)	1,329 3DMarks
Sony VAIO FZ (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100)	532 3DMarks
Dell XPS M1330 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB)	1,408 3DMarks
Samsung Q70 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 and nVidia 8400M G GPU)	1,069 3DMarks
Asus F3sv-A1 (Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0GHz, Nvidia 8600M GS 256MB)	2,344 3DMarks
Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi 1526 (1.66 Core Duo, nVidia 7600Go 256 MB)	2,144 3DMarks
Samsung X60plus (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7200, ATI X1700 256MB)	1,831 3DMarks
Asus A6J (1.83GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 128MB)	1,819 3DMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	827 3DMarks

HDTune storage drive performance test:

For those who are interested in replacing the standard hard disk drive in the E6400 with a high performance solid state drive (SSD), the E6400 is available with the following SSD options and prices:

• 64GB Dell Mobility Solid State Drive (add $499)
• 64GB Ultra Performance Solid State Drive (add $649)
• 128GB Dell Mobility Solid State Drive (add $649)

Speakers

The speakers on the E6400 were better than average for most laptops, comparable to speakers found on most small midrange televisions. While lower bass was lacking, volume levels were quite loud, and distortion at peak levels was not present. The speakers also have a great location that directs sound up and toward the user.

Speaking of great locations, it's also worth mentioning that the fingerprint reader is now located beneath the right speaker. This is a much better location than the palmrest or in between the touchpad buttons (where most manufacturers put the fingerprint reader) because it means you're less likely to accidentally trigger the fingerprint reader when you pick up the notebook or use the touchpad buttons.

Input and Output ports

Port selection was not a problem, although I would have enjoyed seeing a HDMI port, but the inclusion of a DisplayPort is a reasonable compromise and probably more useful in a corporate environment. Going around the notebook, we find the following ports

Left: Kensington lock slot, VGA out, powered USB port, combo USB/eSATA port, heat exhaust, SmartCard reader, and hard drive bay.

Front: Screen latch release and SD card reader.

Right: PC card slot (ExpressCard slot optional), Firewire, optical drive, Headphone/Mic, wireless switches, and two USB ports.

Rear: Modem, LAN, battery, DisplayPort, Power connector.

Heat and Noise

The E6400 controls heat extremely well ... even when the dual-core processor and GPU are crunching numbers and the hard drive is actively reading and writing data. Even after running PCMark05, 3DMark06 and wPrime multiple times during a one-hour period the exterior of the E6400 barely reached the triple-digit range in degrees Fahrenheit. More importantly, the hottest parts of the notebook are confined the the areas where you are less likely to touch the notebook. For example, if you're using the E6400 on you lap in an airport the hottest part of the notebook is located between your legs rather than directly where your legs come into contact with the notebook.

Simply put, the E6400 with hard drive stays remarkably cool even when the system is being heavily stressed. If you configure the notebook with a SSD instead of a hard drive you should have a notebook that runs even cooler. The images below show the external temperature readings in degrees Fahrenheit:

The fan noise was rarely loud enough to be heard in a quiet room unless the notebook was under extreme stress such as benchmarking or serious gaming.

Battery

Under normal web browsing use the 9-cell battery performed quite well, pushing out 4 hours and 22 minutes of life before going into hibernation mode at two percent. Screen brightness was at maximum and other items were set to "High Performance" in Dell's ControlPoint Power Manager. I also never let the notebook so to sleep during the battery test, so users should be able to get more than 4 hours and 22 minutes of battery life by selecting the "Dell Recommended" mode or "Power Saver" mode and letting the notebook go into sleep mode when not in use.

Dell's Latitude team takes a great deal of pride in the development of the new ControlPoint software. This one-stop control center for power management, display settings, network connections, and security settings. ControlPoint is indeed a great interface for novice computer users or anyone who wants to control these features in one location. However, if you're used to using the Windows power management interface, you're in for a rude awakening when you change settings for screen brightness, or sleep mode only to have the Dell ControlPoint software override your changes and reset them to what it believes they should be. Of course, if you simply use the ControlPoint software everything is fine, or you can just turn off the ControlPoint application if you prefer to use the Windows interface.

In any case, more than four hours of battery life gives you more than enough time for taking notes, surfing the web, or responding to emails throughout the day away from an outlet. For those road warriors who require "all-day" computing, Dell also offers a 12-Cell High Capacity Battery Slice ($399) that connects to the bottom of the E6400. Dell claims the when the E6400 is running on both the 9-cell battery and the 12-cell battery slice it can provide a full 19 hours of battery life. Unfortunately, we didn't have access to a battery slice for testing, but it's safe to say that such a configuration would easily produce double-digit battery life with the screen brightness turned down.

Conclusion

The Dell Latitude E6400 is a great performer and a solid replacement for the Dell Latitude D630. It seems to be built well enough to be thrown around in day-to-day use, and it's clear that Dell is trying to improve the Latitude line and offer compelling features ... like 19-hour battery life.

We really couldn't find any major reason to dislike the E6400, but there are a number of "minor annoyances" that could make some businesses look elsewhere. As we mentioned, although the E6400 proved to be quite durbale during our tests, the alloy chassis is thin in some locations which makes the notebook "feel" less durable than it actually is. We're certain the thinner alloy sections where used in order to keep weight as low as possible, but flex is something you don't want to see in a business notebook.

Overall, corporate clients who are looking for the next generation of business notebooks from Dell have plenty of reasons to buy the E6400. Dell made every effort to improve the Latitude family, and the E6400 is a great 14-inch business notebook. That said, there is some pretty strong competition such as the Lenovo ThinkPad T400 and HP EliteBook 6930p ... and those notebooks might prove to be better alternatives for some.

Pros:

• Very tough structure and rugged overall chassis design
• Excellent selection of ports and fantastic docking station
• Excellent battery life ... particularly with extra battery slice
• Solid performance
• Remains very cool where your body comes into contact with it

Cons:

• Industrial design (although cool) looks a little "unfinished"
• Build quality is durable, but alloy chassis feels thin in some spots
• ControlPoint software can be frustrating
• Trackpoint/touchpoint is better than the one on the D630, but still not great

 

For example, if you're using the E6400 on you lap in an airport the hottest part of the notebook is located between your legs rather than directly where your legs come into contact with the notebook.

LOL there goes my future children

 

Interesting and intriguing: My E6400 weighs 5.1lbs with 6 cell battery, this E6400 weighs 4.65lbs with 9 cell battery.

Perhaps this review version has a special thin and light display back. I can push as hard as I can but I find it impossible to get any ripples on my E6400's screen.

Did this review model have the LG-Philips or the Samsung display?

John

 

John,

Thanks for noticing that. Severe brain failure is to blame on that one. Weight should be 5.56lbs with 9-cell battery as reviewed, and 5.23lbs with weight-saving module instead of the optical drive.

 

Doesn't this 1440x900 screen have LED backlighting?

Battery life figures with full brightness aren't very "real world", perhaps you can give us figures with half brightness and excessive peripherals disabled in CP?

 

so does dell "mobility" ssd equate to MLC and performance: SLC? I find this naming scheme a bit misleading.

 

good review, the 4 hour battery life is alrite. looks more of a work mans laptop.

 

^^^^^4hours? that's all? my T500 below gets a little over 6 at almost full brightness writting papers...

 

Regarding this laptop, how about some info on the Quadro NVS? Does this version of Quadro accelerate:

1. CAD functions such as Solidworks Realview?
2. CUDA functions for Adobe CS4 and h.264 encoding with Badaboom?

It would be good if you looked at GPU performance in a real world way rather than commenting on laptop performance with CPU benchmarks such as Super PI. How many people number crunch that way? Most demanding computing tasks are actually graphics related.

My suggestion: Get a copy of CS4 off Adobe and start showing readers what GPU's can really do to make laptops productive and more equal to desktops!

As part of that review, get review samples of the RGB LED notebooks (HP 8730, Dell Covet, Sony AW) and maybe an Adobe RGB compatible camera (Ricoh GX100?) with printer. The result would be big surprise Photoshop editing (GPU speedup) and no surprise printing (color matching from camera to screen to printer).

If you'd like, I will probably be getting a RGB led laptop soon and could write something up.

 

Remember that the review unit has the nVidia graphics card, not the Intel one. That seems to contribute a lot to the battery life.

Surfing the internet (Wifi), with BT off and no other power settings enabled yields 4 hours on my E6400 - but I have the 6 cell battery.

I just checked, and the only spot I could produce any ripples at all on my E6400's screen was dead center, anywhere else and it was super solid.

I'll be honest, I haven't had a single issue with ControlPoint, though I don't use the "Dell Recommended" power plan, I customize my own in Vista. Perhaps that is the problem.

There was a new version of ControlPoint recently released also, I don't know if that would solve anything or not.

It's odd that Dell hasn't acknowledged that the newest touchpad drivers which came with the E4300 and E4200 work on the E6400. After the changes I have made, my touchpad is noticably better than when I first got the laptop, almost on par with the Synaptics on my old XPS m140.

BTW, with a lesser processor and the Intel graphics, I have never had any temperatures top 51*C, I usually run 30-40*C when idling/surfing, but the intake vent is often blocked when I use my laptop.

Thanks for the review.

Greg

 

so the lid is not the same as the brushed aluminum as that on the Asus W3 series? did you find it prone to scratching?

 

I have just upgraded to a E6500 from a T61.

I think that the screen and the input devices (keyboard, mouse) are the most important elements of the computer. The Dell has a much better screen then the Thinkpad, but much worse input devices, so I'm not sure whether I'm better off or not.

I'm hoping that new software for the touchpad will improve the situation, but it can't fix it completely since part of the problem is physical. For example, the Thinkpad's mouse buttons were contoured very nicely whereas the Dell's button are flush which makes them harder to use.

 

It's good to see another new lappy with full-size keyboard. I really can't stand those with cramped keyboard layout.

 

Good review!

I like how Dell decided not to sell out on the keyboard layout.
The keyboard and the placement of the volume buttons bears a striking resemblance to my HP Compaq nw8440, go figure!

That ultra-thin optical drive makes the notebook look much thicker than it really is. It's roughly the same thickness as my nw8440 (which is 1.1"-1.4"), though it looks much thicker than that.

It'll be interesting to see how the HP EliteBook 6930p stacks up against the E6400. After all, HP is going all over Dell with the "Dude, your Dell died 5 hours ago" campaign (HP Claims up to 24 hours of battery life on a 6930p equipped with an LED screen, an SSD, and the 12-cell ultra-capacity secondary battery).

Have you considered HP at all (Not the HP pavilions, but the HP Compaq and HP EliteBook lineups)?? That might be another option for you.

 

Check out the ThinkPad W700 review if you want detailed insight for those types of specs. This was more focused on the typical business user/consumer that is more interested in Excel spreadsheets and having enough battery life to do work on a coast to coast plane trip or to get through the school day.

 

We just got 3 E6500's in for work. The boss ordered them to replace our aging D600's.

Overall my impression have been a huge negative on these laptops. Of the three that we got 1 is dead and in the shop, a second is locked to the primary user because of the crappy Embassy suite fingerprint software, mine is ok in the grand scheme but suffers from a litany of software problems on top of the hardware issues.

The wifi ( intel 5100 ) and BT have a nasty habit of dying if you put the system to sleep or hibernation. I have had to delete and re-associate the Dell travel mouse with the system 3 times in as many days. Once I had to go through a full reboot cycle because the mouse worked, but the scroll wheel did not.

The fingerprint drivers are a joke. By the time the security screen finally has a connection to the reader and is able to scan a finger print I could have typed in my password 5 times already. On a good day it only takes 2 swipes before it reads fingerprint.

The bottom of the case feels flimsy compared to other laptops I have owned. It appears to flex quite easily under it's own weight when being picked up.

The trackpad is TINY. You either need acceleration turned up so high that it's hard to use or you have to swipe several times across the surface just to get from one side of the screen to the other.

We "upgraded" to the slim travel adapter only to get greeted to warnings from both the BIOS and from Vista that the power adapter did not provide enough juice to power the units at full speed or charge the battery very quickly.

Every time I wake the unit it like to tell me that I have 1 storage device connected ( yes, it's telling me the HD is still there )

Pros: battery life

The 1440x900 screen is ok, but is nothing to write home about.

 

It's almost 8 weeks since I got my E6400 (link below to my review) and, so far, it is standing up well to hard work and travel (see my current time zone). The burner issues seem to have resolved themselves.

Dell has issued various updates to the security software and BIOS. These may not be automatically included in the products being shipped. Whoever receives a new computer should be first checking that all the software and drivers are up-to-date.

I would have also liked a bigger touchpad but there's no room for that without leaving off the buttons for the trackpoint.

The unnecessary warning about using the slim 65W PSU is an annoyance which I hope Dell will get round to fixing. The other side effect of the 65W PSU is that the CPU is throttled. I use RMClock to over-ride this.

Try installing the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software. This might fix the HDD message problem.

John

 

Wow--you have outdone yourself, Jerry. Great review.

 

Hi,

i) would you know which is quieter, the Latitude E6400 or the Thinkpad T400?

ii) would you know which is quieter, the Latitude E6400 or the Latitude E4300?

iii) would you know which Latitude 6400 configuration is the quietest?

iv) would you know if there is a notebook that is 100% quiet?

Thanks a lot,

Joan

 

I can't comment on (i). (ii) may be the E6400 since the slightly bigger chassis gives space for a bigger fan.

(iii) Will be the P series CPU, Intel graphics and SSD. And avoid the docking station which seems to cause the fan to run fast.

(iv) I have an old Fujitsu P2020 which has no fan at all, but it is slooow. I find my E6400 is pretty quiet. The fan is either off or on slow speed, which is only audible in a quiet room.

John

 

Solidworks with Realview and the cs4 suite certainly are professional/business and higher education applications.

If someone wants a spreadsheet machine w/ legs they certainly don't want an E6400 w/ Quadro NVS - Intel ULV cpu and graphics would give far better battery life w/ less heat/noise. As to portability/airplane use w/ spreadsheet apps, the Toshiba R600, Macbook Air, Sony Vaio Z, or X200 would be far better choices - and maybe even some of the netbooks qualify.

I believe you have mis-characterized this machine: the E6400 is far more capable of and fitted for desktop like duty while maintaining laptop characteristics - and it should be reviewed as such. To throw a couple CPU benchmarks is ignoring half of what the machine can really do - of course, it's a lot easier to review it that way...

P.S. The W700 is not portable. The E6400 can do most of what the W700 can do at 1/3 the cost and with far greater portability. Why not make that comparison?

 

Someone at Dell is terrified of rounded edges it seems.

While I would choose either one of these or a thinkpad as one of my new laptops I think Dell has still a lot to learn regarding ergonomics (mousepad, etc.). Not a bad machine though.

 

got my e6400 today... loved it.

but after i flipped it upside down, i notice something. the alloy plate on the bottom isn't tighly screwed... i could see the hardware inside. how it's for you guys?

 

My E6400 has a small gap just to the right of the SD card slot. It was about a week before I noticed it.

I think that the one piece base covers are difficult to make to exactly the right shape. They are fixed on with several hooks and only one screw in the middle.

As long as the gap is small then it is no problem (and arguably provides another place where air can enter to keep the computer cool).

John

 

This was the part of the notebook that made the metal tapping noise because it isn't tightly secured. As I mentioned in the review:

"Another minor issue we noticed is that the bottom access panel on the E6400 really needs one extra screw on the bottom right corner next to the hard drive bay. The magnesium allow base plate smacks up against that corner of the notebook and makes an annoying metal tapping noise if you're typing on an uneven surface."

We didn't actually see internal components through the gap, but Dell really should have used another screw.

 

My key impression after reading the review of this notebook is "disappointment".

Fake "metal brushed" exterior.
Palm rest flex.
Sub-par trackpad and trackpoint.
Fit problems ("dude, it's a dell" should not apply to Latitudes).

And above all, abysmal battery life. 4 hrs of web browsing out of a 9-cell battery is not acceptable - the lenovo T400 achieved nearly 10 hrs out of a 9 cell and 6.5 hrs from a 6-cell, and did this with a faster CPU than reviewed in the Latitude.

Shame on you dell.

 

after seeing it myself and with all these design problem. i am thinking if i should just keep my d630 instead...

 

I'm not sure what the issue is with the brushed metal finish. My E6400 looks as I would expect. The palm rests on my E6400 are very solid, the touchpad is as big as will fit in the space available and overall it seems to be well assembled.

As for the battery life, AFAIK the T400 switches to the Intel GPU when on battery. My E6400 with the Intel GPU can manage 6 hours on battery.

As for the square edges, I have not found them to be a problem during 8 weeks of ownership.

John

 

Uh, my E6400 has the NVS160M and a 6-cell battery, and I have 4 hours while web-browsing. I'm quite surprised Jerry's model only had 4 hours with a 9-cell model.

 

Good review... I hope it can last for 6 hours instead of 4 hour battery life...

 

If I read correctly, Jerry's 4 hours out of a 9-cell were at "High Performance" setting and maximum brightness. I suppose this setting keeps the CPU constantly at 2.53 GHz, so you know where the 20 watts are eaten.

 

great review again!

4 hours bat life for high performance is great!

 

Jerry, how durable is the lid?
Some one in another thread brought up an example that I can relate with.. and that is Tokyo subway jams, and being squashed by people. My friend is interested and we're both likely to return to Japan soon so do you think this lid is strong enough to handle all that pressure like a thinkpad lid?

 

My E6400 is now 2 months old and has done a fair amount of travelling. It is carried in a shoulder bag which, when fully loaded, tends to squeeze the computer (when flying this bag is usually under the seat in front and I use it as a footrest!). The display back is metal and seems to be very strong. I can't press it enough with my hands to get any ripples on the screen.

The probable side effect of squashing the closed computer is that the bottom edge of the top part of the display bezel can interact with the palm rest and leave a scratch. The only two rubber bumpers are each of the back of the palm rest and don't properly support the top edge of the display when closed. I've made some pads of black electrical tape and put on the display bezel. They are barely visible. If Dell are sensible they will stick some proper pads on the top display bezel.

John

 

This looks like a serious contender for my next laptop. I like the dedicated graphics. :GEEK:

 

I am interested to buy E6400, but I need your advice
there are 2 configs available:


2.26 C2d/ L2 3Mb
14.1 WXGA LCD xbright
4GB DDR2
320 GB HDD
Intehl 4500MHD(1.3G)
Lan1000/WIFI/6cell
Vista
with modem/ without WebCam and FingerPrint!
1300$
===
intel C2D 2.53 T9400 1066 L2 cache 6MB
4GB ram
250 GB 7200rpm
14.1 WXGA+ LED
256 quadro nvs 160m
8x dvd+-rw
BT,wifi, GLan,56k modem, with all of the stuff!
Vista Business
1700$

which offer do you suggest me to buy?
which factor should I consider more?

 

Fill the FAQ and post it into a new thread in the What Notebook Should I Buy forum.

People then give advice based on your needs.

John

 

unfortunately yes...I thought it's going to be tough , but yesterday I saw some scratches on mine, which made me totally nervous!!!