The 14.1-inch screen offers detailed and crisp images, and although colours could be slightly more vivid, it's also a bright panel. The matt-TFT finish is ideal for commuters, proving resistive to reflections and fingerprints when on the move.
My particular Dell Latitude E5400 came equipped with the following hardware:
Display: 14.1” WXGA (1280x800) CCFL LCD
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 2.0GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB cache
Memory: 2GB of 800MHz DDR2
Hard Drive: 80GB 5400 RPM Hitachi HDD
Graphics: Intel GMA 4500 MHD
Wireless: Dell 1397 802.11n mini-card
Wired: Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx gigabit
CD-RW/DVD-ROM Drive
PC-Card slot
Windows Vista Business w/XP Downgrade option
56Wh 6 Cell battery
90W slim AC adapter
Weight: 5.58lbs/2.54kg
Dimensions 13.3” x 9.5” x 1.5” (338.0 x 240.0 x 37.0mm)
The Latitude E5400 is marketed as a corporate notebook and certainly looks the part. Dell seems to have taken a page from the ThinkPad design manual when they designed the E5400 as the entire machine is a matte black color and there are no fancy curves.
The chassis of the machine is has a thick plastic skin over an aluminum skeleton rather than the magnesium alloy used in the E600 lines. This less-expensive chassis material did not affect the sturdiness of the E5400's chassis one bit as it is very solid. You can pick up the Dell Latitude E5400 battery by a corner and there is zero chassis flex. The lid has a metal outer cover and the hinges are very robust as well. The E5400 is extremely sturdy, but it does pay a little penalty for that sturdiness with using less-expensive materials by weighing the better part of a pound more than the magnesium-alloy E6400.
A comprehensive set of ports are available on the left-hand side of this machine, with VGA and S-Video for hooking up displays and projectors, a PC card slot for older peripherals, 1394 FireWire and two USB ports. You’ll also find sockets for the modem and Gigabit Ethernet adapter. There’s no sign of an HDMI port, however, so you won’t be able to output high-definition movies.
Most of the right side of the chassis is taken up by the DVD rewriter, although you will find a further two USB ports, headphone and microphone sockets and a connection for the power adapter. There’s a memory card reader on the front.
The Dell Latitude E5400 came pre-installed with Windows XP Professional only, though it included a Windows Vista Business disc. This initiative from Dell caters to satisfy both who are happy with XP and folks eager to try out Vista. We ran our benchmarks on Windows Vista and realized just how good this laptop is. WorldBench 6, our in-house real-world benchmark suite, pegged the Latitude E5400's overall performance score at an impressive 98, falling a point shorter than the 99 garnered by Dell Studio 15.
PC Mark 2005 score of 5350, PC Mark Vantage at 3498, and 3D Mark 06 score of 814, all agree to the fact that the Dell Latitude E5400 is a very good machine. Seldom is gaming associated with a business laptop, but F.E.A.R and Doom 3 played at medium settings averaged 15fps and 19fps, respectively. It has the potential for handling casual gaming well, if the rigors of a tiring day call for a quick stress buster. However, the six cell Latitude E5400 battery fell short of the four hour mark, lasting 3 hours 50 minutes on MobileMark 2007.
Business users want a laptop that will allow them to get some work done while on the road (or maybe to watch a DVD on a flight). The E5400 isn’t a laptop that you’d want to play demanding 3D games on, so that automatically cuts out the video card as a major power hog. During our testing, we found that the E5400 gives about 1 hour and 20 minutes of battery life under the most demanding conditions. This torture test was done using Orthos in blend mode, testing both the CPU and RAM at 100%. Brightness was also set to max, making this a worst-case scenario. On the other side of the spectrum, the E5400 battery lasted a relatively long 6 hours and 20 minutes with the computer at idle & minimum brightness. Business users should expect to get between 3-4 hours of genuine Excel fun crunching their spreadsheets.
The keyboard is another great feature that is mentioned in all positive Dell Latitude E5400 reviews. The keys are smooth and move with a solid click. They are also comfortable, and users can type all day long with no problems. The touchpad is located in the center, where it is complemented by a pointing stick. This offers an alternative method of clicking and controlling the arrow onscreen.
A 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor powers this laptop. Even though the memory is slightly slower than what most users expect, it's still a great system nevertheless. It can handle multi-tasking and resource-heavy applications, such as image and video editing programs. The speed is good for the most part, and it handles all office and business related applications. The Dell Latitude E5400 comes with a VGA port for connecting the laptop to a projector or other external display.
The Latitude E5400 is designed not just to survive a long day on the job, but to provide the flexibility mobile users demand. Enjoy a highly adaptable and innovative family of docks and peripherals, designed to shift easily between desktop and on-the-go computing. The ultimate team player, the Latitude E5400 can be managed virtually anywhere in the world by a single IT professional. Image and systems management tools like Dell ImageDirect and Dell Client Manager also help simplify systems management and free up IT resources.
The Latitude E5400 comes at a price of $899 and can be purchased online and from major electronics stores.
Coinciding with the release of this laptop, the company had launched a new community website which is called as Digital Nomads. This site is specifically designed to allow web-centric consumers to stay in touch with their works while also connecting them to various forms of recreation regardless of their location.
No comments:
Post a Comment