e6410 vs. T410: comparison review

I travel a great deal, but I've never had any great need for a power adapter indicator light.

My guess is that you aren't using any sort of surge protector. Every travel surge protector I've ever seen has its own indicator light, and while they don't offer optimal protection, they're better than absolutely nothing.

Personally, I like Dell power adapters, as they're durable and tend to be adequate.

I'm inclined to say that multi-touch gestures really weren't all that popular back in 2007, before the iPhone/iPod touch really caught on in a big way. Come to think about it, Synaptics actually has registered trademarks describing a number of multi-touch gestures, so I'm not really sure how much of this is proprietary?

From experience, I can say that I noticed no lagging with the ALPS touchpad on the E6410, but I was using the latest drivers. There were no scrolling issues. The touchpad was superior to both the ALPS and Synaptics touchpads found on most recent consumer quality notebooks.

As far as I'm concerned, it really doesn't matter whether a touchpad is made by Synaptics or ALPS?

The only real difference between these largely generic control devices is that Synaptics had some very nice promotional videos, and trademarked the terms Momentum and Chiralmotion. Yes, both of those words are trademarked.

Personally, I can't imagine very many people buy computers on the basis of the touchpad manufacturer?

There are plenty of components inside a notebook that are adversely impacted by heat, both in terms of performance and longevity. I can state from experience that any notebook computer is vulnerable to overheating because of the limited mass available for a heat sink and the volume and power limitations of active ventilation.

As far as the heat issue, this is where a magnesium cased computer is far more desirable than a plastic cased computer. Metal conducts heat, whereas plastic tends to insulate heat.

From experience, I can state that the E6410 does a brilliant job of dissipating heat, especially under heavy processor loads. Actually, the underside tends to get cooler under heavy processor loads than when the computer is idle, which indicates that BIOS keeps the fan off as much as possible to save battery life.

Of course, I think that some people just don't quite get the whole concept of heat dissipation, and get freaked out when the palm rest is the same luke warm temperature as the underside on a metal cased computer.

 

Do you mind if you can give a little bit more detail about the E6410 pointing stick? I tend to prefer using TrackPoints/Pointing Sticks over Trackpads but the only experience I had on the Dell system is the XT2 ultraportable which I found to be cramp and horrible to use, so much so it forced me to use the trackpad on that machine. Also the trackpoint mouse buttons on the XT2 clicks inversely (which I find difficult to use) compared to the Thinkpads and wondered if this is also the case on the E6410? Any info on this would be appreciated, thanks.

 

Somehow you read all I wrote without understanding any of it. So I'll make it shorter.

Touchpad: the hardware is probably similar, but the drivers between ALPS and Synaptics are miles apart. Synaptics touchpads have given me far fewer problems over the years, while ALPS pads have caused intense frustrations.

Heat: FOR THE LAST TIME, I am talking about heat in regards to USER COMFORT. I don't care about machine longevity, that's what the 3 year warranty is for. I care about my ability to set the machine on my lap without becoming sterile and drenching my pants with sweat. The e6410 is great at dissipating heat!! FANTASTIC! But that's a bad thing because it dissipates it directly into ME. The T410 sequesters the heat and throws it out the side of the machine instead of into my lap, WHICH IS GOOD. 96-104F is TOO HOT for the underside of a laptop! I am aware that many consumer models get much, much hotter than that on the bottom. I would never buy those either.

Neither of the machines have problems with decreased performance due to heat build up.

 

Service wise, I think that's a bit subjective though, although I haven't been needed to call Lenovo before, but prior to returning M11xR2, I called Dell tech support 2 times. First time, I get a guy that's clueless, but atleast he is trying to help. And he ended up advise the tier 2 for the problem. I called again after the weekend to find out the status, and get a guy that endup pissed me off, and instead of working w/ him I get off the phone and look for a dell number to return the M11xR2. So, I guess it's only fair to say Dell is 3 times better in this case because E6410 offer 3 years warranty as standard vs 1 year for T410.

Although it's fair to say that E6410 is hotter at the bottom, but which is hotter on the palm rest? There is a reason manufacturers stop calling these high performance beast a laptop anymore. They are call notebook now. If you want to be fair, you should measure the heat on palmrest too. Not all users put their notebook on the lap, but all do put their hand on palm rest.

 

*I'll* give you a quick summary: If you want to hit someone over the head with the laptop and show someone it still turns on, get the Lenovo....for all else, get the DELL.... Sorry, couldn't help myself...I'm obviously not a big fan of Lenovo....

 

I think the real problem is that you're unfamiliar with a metal cased notebook. My guess is that you'd make the same complain about a Macbook Pro, but not about the cheapest all-plastic Macbook. It all comes down to the tactile properties of metals and plastics.

Truth be known, considering the way you're using your notebooks, you really should go for a Macbook because of the smooth underside which lacks vents. As much as I have to admit it, Apple has a much better concept for notebook cooling if the user wants to rest a notebook on a textile surface, such as a carpet, bedspread, tablecloth, or in your case, a garment such as pants or a skirt.

You probably would also enjoy the glass touchpad, which would solve all of your gripes about multi-touch gestures as well. You see, your previous ALPS driver issues stemmed from you wanting an aging PC to do something that more recent Apple products do. If you want Apple functionality, buy an Apple product.

Get thee to an Apple Store.

 

Maybe the E6410 runs hotter than the E6400 but a few days back I was using my E6400 on my lap for a couple of hours without any heat problem. Dell's challenge is to set the thermal rules in the BIOS to balance temperature and fan activity. Ideally, they Dell have more than one set of rules and allow the user to select their preference. Samsung offer this facility in their notebooks.

John

 

I can use my laptop (E6400) on my lap with no problems, even when running MATLAB.

The exception is if I run games, in that case it gets too hot for my legs.

 

linuxwanabe:
Except everything about apple is wrong. Glossy screens, no windows, no buttons on touchpad, no pointing stick, many of them run hot on the bottom, even if you install windows the power schemes provide poor battery life under windows, chiclet style keyboards... i could go on and on. Apple has good hardware but it is not at all what I'm looking for.

Lenovo also does their cooling that way; the inlet is on the back and the outlet is on the side. There are small vents all around the bottom to draw hot air out of the machine, but it doesn't get much hotter if you cover them up.

Ratsey/Kaputt:
I have done a fair amount of research indicating that the e6410 does indeed run much hotter than the e6400, which ran very very cool. It is somewhat surprising to me as well, considering how all reviews for the e6400 seem to indicate that it runs very cool.
Finding this to be odd, I looked more broadly, and found that ALL Core2Duo laptops run significantly cooler than the new i5/i7 counterparts. I'm guessing that the new chips run much hotter and many manufacturers did not significantly change their cooling mechanisms to account for this.

If you want a very cool running laptop, it may be best to look for a core2duo machine or wait for sandy bridge architecture, which is the next time intel will do a die shrink, and this will allow for a much cooler machine.

 

That may well be, since the Pxxxx series of Core 2 Duo has a 25W TDP while the i5/i7 have 35W.