Any love for Latitudes?

[jedisurfer1]

The e7240 and e7440 I had I enjoyed more than the x240 and t440. Been thinking about the m4800 qhd screen but haven't found the right price on Dell's financial site.

[KentT]

Yes, I like better model Latitudes from the E5000 line upwards and the best of the older models. My other laptop is a Latitude E 5510. And it has been durable and dependable. My example survived being dumped at the town dump, a neighbor rescued it for me. It needed cleaning, a keyboard, and more RAM. Core i3 first gen and it also got a bigger hard drive and a DVD multidrive upgrade. It was a stripped down, bare bones model. It's survived Cerebral Palsied me with no issues including a bounce or two.

[Kasm279]

For those who voted "Yes, I'd like to contribute."
Could you send me a PM?

[JoshuaT11]

I like some Latitudes and some Elitebooks but much prefer Thinkpads. Not a fan of any Thinkpad beyond the Sandybridge machines. I might find this info useful but doubt I'll use it. Might get more interest on a Dell centric forum/subforum.

So do I. I am agree with you.

[TonyJZX]

Although TPs are my fetish, I do have a lot of love for the aluminum finish Elitebooks and in a distant 3rd is the Latitudes.

I use to work for many Dell only shops and they bug me, I beleive they may be Compal or Wistron etc. for one generation to generation so I feel quality varies. They do not IMO put up with hard wear unlike TPs.

I think I have at least two working Latitudes but both seemed by DTRs for their lives.

I would take a Latitude over the anyone else other than Lenovo HP though.

To be fair to HP and Dell, they dont have as accessible a models database as Lenovo (ie. sm.krelay) but it is comprehensive if you are able to hit the right site.

I was able to drill down every part number in a Latitude via the serial number which is something I believe you cant with Lenovo.

eg. I looked up one of my Latitudes... its made in Poland (!!!) and I was able to find out it was sold in Ireland.

How it landed to me is a mystery. You are not able to do that with Lenovo.

[RealBlackStuff]

Your location is another mystery...
Seems you're bouncing all over NSW.

[kony]

Don't mind RBS. He just seems to enjoy stalking people. He even bothered me once because I didn't change my location from Poland to China, when I casually mentioned in some post that I currently live in China. As if the place where I stay matters to other forum members :roll:

[RealBlackStuff]

FYI: you can ignore me all you want.
BUT, it DOES matter for many people on the forum to know WHERE someone lives, especially if they ask for help, or when they want to buy something in a hurry.
Shipping costs nowadays are spoiling a huge part of the market...

[TonyJZX]

I picked up a Dell e6400 for the price of a few pizzas. It has all the strengths I like. I came with 4Gb 320gb 7,200rpm drive... C2D 2.8 T9700. It has a LED screen which I find surprising. It has heaps of connects, more than one can expect in the closest T400, most important being DP.

It runs Windows 10 more than adequately although I have seen a few bugs... ie. passing the spks to the headphone jack sometimes isnt reliable.

May go back to Win7. Due to working in IT for the good part of a decade I have a few Dell HP Thinkpad chargers so I'm good there.

The Dells have good product support ie. I can buy spares, knockoff batteries start at $20 delivered, you can get ultrabay hdd converters and fans and whatnot are there.

Good thing is that it came with a Intel 5300 so no more to buy.

I used to work for companies who used these so its a bit of a nostalgia trip. This is a good usable laptop. It is easy to work on, the kbd and nipple is fine but not as good as Thinkpads.

The ddr2 issue isnt a problem as I wouldnt invest in 8Gb anyway. This is a conventional laptop which I like, I'm not interested in gimmicks.

[Kasm279]

Yes, parts supply is second only to ThinkPads. Try installing the pointing device driver package from an E6430 instead of the native E6400's, I've done that on my Latitude XT and Precision M4400. (The latter of which is just an E6500 with a different lid and GPU.)

[jdrou]

It has a LED screen which I find surprising.

2008 was a transitional year for laptop screens. Some systems had both CCFL and LED screens available. E6400 had WXGA CCFL, WXGA LED, and WXGA+ LED options I believe. Next model year was pretty much all LED.

[MrMaguire]

I always thought the Latitude E6400 and E6410 were really nice machines. As if Dell wanted to make their own ThinkPad.

[Kasm279]

I always thought the Latitude E6400 and E6410 were really nice machines. As if Dell wanted to make their own ThinkPad.

They're definitely in the same class. The E6420 and E6430 are equally as sturdy, just a little more styled.

[thinkpadcollection]

Dell notebook heatsinks are a joke. I have not seen any well designed heatsinks using all copper even just a plate between heatpipe and fins or heatpipe through fins. Frequent heatsink cleanings is a must on these Dell notebooks.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[Kasm279]

Dell notebook heatsinks are a joke. I have not seen any well designed heatsinks using all copper even just a plate between heatpipe and fins or heatpipe through fins. Frequent heatsink cleanings is a must on these Dell notebooks.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

Could you elaborate on what models? All of the E series I've worked on have been just fine. I've never had my E6430 so much as throttle.

[MrMaguire]

Most Dells cool themselves pretty well, even the consumer ones which are typically louder for some reason. Of course Dells aren't immune to a high-powered GPU sharing the heatsink with a CPU, or even the various subpar CPU architectures that have been around. I know they made a Pentium 4 ThinkPad, it's probably a good thing they never made a Turion 64 x2 one.

[thinkpadcollection]

Hey, I do have a Latitude D531 with metal base. 15.4" turion x2 64 2.3GHz, docs says 4GB total 667FSB ram, in testing used 2x 4GB low density 2Rx8 modules worked as 8GB total, helped by side port single small memory for video.

What I am referring to this joke is Dell built the heatsink for notebooks in general usually had no heat spreader between heat pipes and cooling fins to spread heat better. Just most of these usually are bare heatpipes soldered to too thin aluminum fins like row of flags. If these pipes goes through fins' opening, then that is better.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[TonyJZX]

I agree certain dells, especially the high performance nvidia types have cooling issues. I think the older D630 have more heat issues. This one here is a plain Intel one and it has a metal sheet base so I think cooling is fine. Inspection of the insides passes. It only takes one screw to open the bottom which uncovers the whole lot.

I am a fan of the Thinklight. I use it sometimes to illuminate headphone jacks and to see L or R on the headphones etc. I miss it. Even the Elitebooks which is a physical light is more problematic.

With a dual core 2.8 and 4gb of ram I dont see a speed issue on normal apps.

[ZaZ]

2008 was a transitional year for laptop screens. Some systems had both CCFL and LED screens available.

The backlight isn't as important as the screen quality and none of of the Latitudes until lately were anything special.

[Kasm279]

2008 was a transitional year for laptop screens. Some systems had both CCFL and LED screens available.

The backlight isn't as important as the screen quality and none of of the Latitudes until lately were anything special.

You must have never used the 1920x1200 panel the E6500 and M4400 had as an option.

[oeuvre]

Can confirm, that 1920x1200 was a nice display

[ajkula66]

Can confirm, that 1920x1200 was a nice display

+1

Old Latitudes with UXGA panels from P4M era were also quite nice. Not FlexViews, but very nice screens by any standard.

[UMPC2024]

I've always had a thing for the Dell Latitude E6410. Looked pretty ThinkPad-like before they switched the hinge and rounded out the chassis on following models.

[TonyJZX]

since this thread, i have acquired two Latitudes... an e5420 and an e6420

both similar in spec. ie. i5 2.5 plus, 1,600 x 900 AUO LED screens, Intel GFX (if they were 1,366 x 768 I wouldnt bother)

both were acquired w/ no hdd no psu but no issue, std. 7mm ssds and dell psus are common at my place

i think they both had intel 6200/05s both replaced with 5300/6300s, no whitelist here

i prefer the aesthetics of the 5420 but really, both perform quite well in win7... slics inbuilt

compared to my 420/420s they seem be easier to maintain although their metal covers seem to attract dents and scratches

i believe these guys also have replaceable cdrom bays but not as modular as the ultrabay

also hdmi is much prefered over displayport

[Kasm279]

compared to my 420/420s they seem be easier to maintain although their metal covers seem to attract dents and scratches

i believe these guys also have replaceable cdrom bays but not as modular as the ultrabay

also hdmi is much prefered over displayport

Yeah, the lid on my E6430 shows a lot of wear, unfortunately. Also, Dell produced a USB 3 E-Bay module for the E**20 series machines, not to mention the E-Port Legacy Extender.

[TonyJZX]

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Extender-Do ... B0042F8N44

what an interdasting device!

it fits a whole heap of dells from the last 10yrs or so

i have not much need for com1 because my days playing with cisco procurve devices are limited but it IS cheap enough

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Dell-AE3USB ... 2548.l4275

this is a less interdasting device since these things have express 54 so your usb3 antics are a few dollars away

also i'd rather keep that bay open for sata purposes

[Kasm279]

Yes, the legacy extender is honestly one of the reasons I went with my E6430, as I was so used to the serial/parallel port ultrabay adapter in my T60p.

[bit_twiddler]

Since this thread was started, I procured a precision m7510 to use because I need ECC;
I'd definitely be interested in such a site, but how would it be possible?
As someone has posted, Dell doesn't provide FRU numbers in their manuals.

[Kasm279]

Since this thread was started, I procured a precision m7510 to use because I need ECC;
I'd definitely be interested in such a site, but how would it be possible?
As someone has posted, Dell doesn't provide FRU numbers in their manuals.

That's true, although ThinkWiki really only has those for accessories. It wouldn't be difficult to find Dell's CNs from other sources.

[TonyJZX]

I believe Dell's tag lookup posts FRUs of your existing unit... if you need upg. parts then you need ebay google partfinder (???) and some luck

maybe empr or some site like it?