Ben's Bargains

[Ben]

Product: Dell Latitude E5400
Manufacturer: Dell
MSRP: $1299 as configured (Varies by configuration)

Introduction
Dell has recently revamped their Latitude line of business laptops, releasing them under the "E-Series" name. Here we take a look at the portable productivity targeted laptop, the Latitude E5400. We’re trying to find out if this is going to be the computer that your company buys to deploy to the grunts such as yourself. Let’s take a look.

Specs
3 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 3 Year NBD On-Site Service
Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 (2.00GHz) 2M L2 Cache, 800Mhz FSB
Vista Business with Windows XP Professional downgrade
Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
Dell Wireless™ 1397 802.11b/g Mini Card
14.1 inch Wide Screen WXGA LCD Panel
2.0GB, DDR2-800 SDRAM, 2 DIMMS
90W Slim A/C Adapter (3-pin)
160GB Hard Drive, 5400RPM
Dell Touchpad
8X DVD+/-RW
6 Cell Battery



Unboxing
If you’re accustomed to notebooks coming in a relatively small sized box, you are in for a surprise. The E5400 arrived in a box that seems better suited for a full sized desktop PC. Now I know where all of the saved Studio Hybrid packaging materials went. Within the main box there are three sub-boxes that contain the E5400 Laptop and accessories. The packaging reminded me of my high school egg drop competition, so there should be little chance of shipping damage to the laptop.

After all of the cardboard rippin

[mrmorality]

Nice work if you can get it, right Ben?

[phrozen]

wow. that thing looks awful. huge, heavy... no way they're going to take on the lenovo t series machines with it... well, let's see how the e4300 looks when it starts shipping..

[hydroguy]

#2, Dell doesn't even try compete with the T series with the E5400. The E6400 (14.1") and the E6500 (15.4") are the competing products.

[Corporate_Bate]

This machine doesn't look as nice as my company D630. I would not trade my D630 for this machine. I'm running a T7500 @ 2.20GHz and 2 GB of ram upgradeable to 4. Can you remove the DVD rom and add an extra battery? The E series looks really cheap. I don’t see where the benefit is over the 630. Oh, The port replicator is really ugly too. I guess I don’t have anything nice to say about it. It just looks like a black brick. Good job Dell.

[jcoelho59]

the big! the bad! and the ugly!

[sleepysan]

Wish it were sleeker

[Magic_cheese]

That looks...a bit last generation. What does it really have versus a M1530 or similar?

I liked the comment about the viruses though. =)

[goga1011]

Wish if it was mine

[catboofus123]

dont' understand why business laptops are so ugly...

[mtpaul]

Ugly=no one wants to steal it!

[kaliston]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In this case they're usually considered ugly because at a presentation you don't want a red or flashy laptop, you want one that looks classic and goes unnoticed

[bluebunny]

it's the performance that counts