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5
[RATINGOF] 5
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Reviewed by:
HappyDeli
Location:
Irvine, CA
Duration of product use:
Months
Level of expertise:
Expert
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Title: Excellent laptop
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Date: October 27, 2009
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Product Uses: ms office suite applications, data analysis using sas, web browsing
Review:I bought this laptop in July, 2009, and have used it for about 3 months now. I use it for meetings and the like, and on the docking station in my office and at home. The display on 24" monitor is crisp and bright- thanks to an excellent video card that can generate high resolution display. I primarily use MS Office suite and SAS for data crunching. I use it from 8 AM to 11 PM everyday and am extremely happy with the durability and performance of this machine. I have lot more positive things to say than negative and am still discovering the features of this laptop.
Good: Great battery life. With added battery slice, it can go for more than 7 hours without a problem. Backlit keybaord is extremely useful, and I can work virtually anywhere. Fingerprint reader makes login a breeze. With 4GB of RAM, it is quite fast machine, and can easily crunch a lot of data in a fairly short time.
Not so good: Latitude ON Reader is working, but has limited capabilities. I have'nt had a chance to get the full Latitude ON yet, that is available in the newer models. It would be excellent to have that feature for checking mail or browsing the net. The regular drives are a bit noisy and generate heat. Solid State hard drive is cooler and quiter, but is a bit pricy.
This is what Latitude is all about. I am so impressed with this laptop that I am getting a Regal Red for my wife. I do not know why these people are complaining about features that work so beautifully on my laptop.
9 of 12 people found this review helpful.
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2
[RATINGOF] 5
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Reviewed by:
HappyJoe
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Title: Not Great
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Date: October 17, 2009
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Review:I bought an E4300 about 4 months ago and while it is a smart looking laptop, I would not buy it again. The mouse pad is hopeless and mistracks your finger regularly - I had a Latitude D530 for several years and never experienced this type of problem.
The keyboard is also substandard with limited travel and a poor feel. While on the keyboard, the auto backlight is erratic, sometimes coming on straight after the first keystroke and other times after 2 or 3 key presses. I have checked the BIOS settings but not change.
Summary - a good concept that has been poorly executed.
13 of 17 people found this review helpful.
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| Overall: |
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4
[RATINGOF] 5
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Reviewed by:
Haakon
Location:
Bay Area, CA
Duration of product use:
Months
Level of expertise:
Expert
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Title: Good Not Great
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Date: October 13, 2009
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Product Uses: web design, visual studio, photoshop
Review:OK this little computer is full of potential but falls a little short. It has the right size factor small but not too small, great bright screen and loaded with features and power that can make some desktops cry. The problems that come in are few but they can make a user say “why” I did not pay full retail price but I am reviewing this product as if I did pay almost $2k. For $2k I expect everything to work and to work very well. Fit and finish should be solid and show no signs of weak spots.
My biggest complaint is the touchpad and the software. For a high end laptop the touchpad and buttons are lacking. The pad does not always track properly and when I reboot the computer the settings for speed and sensitivity reset to default. This seems little but it gets annoying and should not happen. Dell has no solution.
The six cell battery is a poor design. It works fine and provides good overall performance but the location is very poor. It sticks out the back and is ugly. But most important to know is that it can act as a lever that if that is if you sit “accidently” lightly on your computer on the couch or office chair all the pressure will rest on that hinge and bend the frame! Now I don’t think very many people will sit “lightly” “accidently” on their computer but if the three cell battery was on the computer the pressure would have been distributed evenly and most likely nothing would happened. Do have to give kudos for a very good overall build and solid fell for such a small powerful machine.
Be sure to order everything you want when you order it such as Bluetooth or fingerprint reader cause if you need to add it later you may find that the computer does not fit back together as well as it came to you. Even if you have a professional do it.
As far as cheap feel and very plastic like complaints others are saying. Yes it is a small, thin and light computer; there will be compromises that should just be expected. If you need a very rugged computer I would say step up to the Precision line or bigger Latitude.
8 of 11 people found this review helpful.
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| Overall: |
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2
[RATINGOF] 5
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Reviewed by:
SimonNB
Location:
Oxford
Duration of product use:
Months
Level of expertise:
Expert
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Title: Disapointing
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Date: September 28, 2009
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Product Uses: Connecting with Friends, Finances, work
Review:Positives:
It looks okay, is pretty light, and does work quite well quite a lot of the time.
Negatives:
Battery life is disappointing.
Track pad is bad. Also as it's not sunken is susceptible to accidental touches, resulting cursors going where you don't want them. A lot. No amount of adjustment has fixed this for me.
Some of the Dell software (that you have to run to get all functionality) seems to slow the computer down quite a lot.
Running windows XP, there is a driver problem with the 2nd display output (on my machine anyway) that Dell have been unable to solve, despite numerous online ‘chats’ and 2 site visits.
The machine frequently crashes going in to standby.
Display is not great; the backlight is such that if you can see top half of the screen perfectly, you can’t see the bottom perfectly.
Am I demanding? Yes. For over £1000 and the quite low spec at that money, I was expecting it to be quality. It isn’t.
30 of 31 people found this review helpful.
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