E6410 Owner's Thread

Well, this is a new one.

From my own experience, I can confirm that both the WXGA and WXGA+ displays are accurately described as "anti-glare." By no stretch of the imagination can I describe either as "glossy."

The viewing angles, especially the vertical viewing angles, aren't all that impressive, but are entirely acceptable.

 

You're making me feel like a bit of an idiot :-(

I dismissed the ATG because the max res is wxga. I now use a 13.3" machine with a wxga display, but find the resolution to be a bit low for my big spreadsheets. It occurred to me today that it would take less than a minute to put a button on my toolbar which would shrink my spreadsheet to fit a wxga display.

BTW, I took a bit of editorial license when I said that 90% of my work was outdoors. In fact, much of my work is indoors... with my laptop hooked up to a 27" display (and the quality of the E6410's panel is of no concern then).

But when I am using my computer as a "portable" I'm almost certain to be on an outdoor patio (perhaps with a cold beverage) and I'd like to use my new computer as a portable whenever weather permits.

And if Dell Has switched to inferior panels for the regular E6410 then I'd give the ATG another look.

 

Having both a Compaq Evo (which has a Synaptics touchpad) and a Dell Latitude (which has an ALPS touchpad), my personal opinion is that Dell needs to lose the ALPS touchpads and join HP and Lenovo in using a Synaptics solution. The touchpad on my Evo has a much smoother action and is more responsive. I've played with the drivers on the Dell but they aren't much help. Just my personal opinion though. On an unrelated topic, are the E6410s holding up better than the E6400s in terms of build quality? We have a lot of E6400s at my office which really look to be showing a lot of wear (shiny keyboards/palmrests, etc.) after only a year in service.

 

The way I see(feel) it, I don't think it's matter whether it's ALPS or Synaptics. Seriously, I got HP mini 210 HD for a netbook because it has 720p screen. Well, even though it has Synaptics touchpad, it's the worst touchpad I have ever use, even Acer Aspire One beat it hand down. Dell E6410 although the touchpad feel a bit cheap, but customize setting can help and make it quite decent. HP mini Synaptics touchpad on the other hand, it's unstable and the click buttons are hard to use. Sometime I have to hit like 5 times before I hit the right spot. Hitting the wrong spot mean the mouse won't do anything. So, yea, just the name Synaptics alone mean nothing to me.

 

Compaq Evo? Huh? Didn't that brand name die about 6-7 years ago? If you're switching from a Pentium 4 era notebook to an E6410, you certainly don't upgrade very often.

I'd also advise you to look at some contemporary HP notebooks to realize that the E6410's touchpad is entirely superior to that found in most retail notebooks. I'd dare you test a HP DM4 in a bricks 'n mortar store and tell me that its touchpad isn't absolutely terrible.

Well maybe touchpads were just better back in the year 2003?

 

Synaptics has much better marketing than ALPS, although precious few consumers buy computers on the basis of the touchpad manufacturer.

I can say with certainty that the early E6410 ALPS touchpad issue did exist, but were largely corrected by later driver updates. Those early issue were solved. Case closed.

I also can't understand why HP has been intentionally equipping so many notebooks with awful touchpads. The touchpad on the DM4 has to be the worst I've ever used. I can only hope that the Envy 14 doesn't use the same touchpad.

I guess the only explanation for HP's crappy touchpads, such as the one found on the DM4, is that HP is trying to imitate the functionality of Apple's glass trackpads, but without spending money on quality hardware. Perhaps HP spent too much money on pointless laser etched aluminum lids and had to save money when it came the the trackpads.

Either way, I've had good Synaptics touchpads and good ALPS touchpads. The brands really don't matter.

 

Well, I just got my new E6410 in Regatta Blue yesterday. Today I noticed the dreaded "CPU Whine" and it REALLY sucks. Other than that though, the system is a DREAM and the display (LG WXGA+, 1440x900) is FABULOUS. That being said... does/did anyone else have this issue and if so how was it resolved? I checked the Dell forums hoping to chime in on an existing thread but the only threads there related to CPU whine are a couple years old.

Thanks!

 

I can't find that post. Can anyone help me out?

 

Putting everything related to the E6410 in this thread (of 1000+ posts) makes
it just about impossible to locate information. May I suggest members start
new threads when they deal with something new about the E6410 ? Even
better would be separate sub-forums for each model.

Just look at the M6500 thread. 4300 posts...

 

Yes, the Compaq Evo name died somewhere around 2004 (but mine is still under warranty). The N620c was the last commercial model to wear a Compaq badge and has a Pentium-M chip. But I digress. I totally agree with you that the touchpads in consumer notebooks suck...the touchpad on my work-issue Dell Latitude is superior to all of them. I'm really only looking at the E6410 and Lenovo T410 at this point (HP Elitebooks are out due to 16:9 screens), and I see a lot more negative comments about the touchpad on the E6410 than the Lenovo T410. I suppose in the end they're all very similar though with the right drivers.