Latitude E4300 first impressions

Hi everybody,
This is my first message on this forum, let's hope my english is good enough
First of all, I'm living in France and I'm a bit surprised by the price of the E4300 in USA. To give you an example, after discussing the price on the phone I could get this configuration, all included, for 1270€ (t's about 1700$ today) with free additional mouse and keyboard worth 70€ :

Latitude E4300 : BLACK Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300(2.26GHz,1066MHz,6MB) Latitude ON Reader
Display : Black - Camera and Latitude ON Reader, No WWAN-13.3in WXGA(1280X800)
Memory : 4096MB (2x2048) 800MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Hard Drive : 160GB Serial ATA (7200RPM) Free Fall Sensor
Optical Drive : BLACK 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
Power Cord : Euro 65W AC Adaptor 3 pin
Battery : Primary 6-cell 56W/HR LI-ION
Wireless : Intel WiFi Link 5100 (802.11 a/b/g/n 1X2) 1/2 MiniCard with Centrino label
Français - Logitech - MX320
Keyboard : Internal French Azerty Backlight Keyboard

Sounds like interesting, isn't it?

Anyway, I remain a bit concerned by the quality of the keyboard and the screen. I was wondering if someone could make some kind of video showing the flex on the keyboard? near the arrow keys...? I would also like to know the size of the E4300 with a 6cell battery: the woman on the phone told me it was the same, but now I'm sure it is not. And to finish, about the screen, I've heard on this thread it was worse than the xps1330 led screen, is that really true? Because I've seen this one and I didn't quite like it :s found it had a lot of backlight...

Hope I can get some help, thank you !

 

Huh I was about to ask the same thing!
Count me in, on that request
If server space is needed, I'll be glad to share it, just PM me.

 

N3ox,

While I don't have anything which can make a video for you, here is what I can tell you. On the unit I received, there wasn't really any "flex" per say. The keys just had a very cheapy/flimsy lack of tactile feel to them. Some of the smaller sony notebooks from a while back had a similar feeling.

The screen has a significant amount of black light bleed in my opinion. On black backgrounds, you can see pretty much 1/3rd of the bottom of the screen medium to lighter gray as opposed to the black on the top. I was really unimpressed. However, I am extremely anal retentive.

Andrei

 

I've ordered my E4300 on monday... should arrive next week... But with everything that was written here, I'm a little bit anxious, you are not speaking highly of it...

So as an eternal optimistic, I am sure it will be a great laptop!

I will give my first impressions as soon as I will have it

My configuration:

Latitude E4300 : BLACK Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300(2.26GHz,1066MHz,6MB) 1 S
Display : Black - No Camera, No Latitude ON Reader, No WWAN- 13.3in WXGA(1280X800) 1 S
Memory : 4096MB (2x2048) 800MHz DDR3 Dual Channel 1 S
Hard Drive : 160GB Serial ATA (5400RPM) 1 S
Optical Drive : BLACK 8X DVD+/-RW Drive 1 S
Power Cord : Swiss 90W AC Adaptor 3 pin 1 S
Battery : Primary 6-cell 56W/HR LI-ION 1 S
Wireless : Intel WiFi Link 5100 (802.11 a/b/g/n 1X2) 1/2 MiniCard with Centrino label 1 S
Wireless : Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth 1 S
Keyboard : Internal Swi/French Qwertz Standard Keyboard 1 S
Operating System : French Windows Vista Business SP1 to XP Pro SP3 Downgrade 1 S
Base Warranty 1 S
3Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day - Minimum Warranty 1 S
3Yr ProSupport for IT and Next Business Day On-Site Service 1 S
Declined CompleteCare 1 S
Power Supply : Swiss 3 Wire 90W AC Adapter 2M (Kit) 1 S

I don't need every single option such as fingerprint reader or dell reader on... but DDRIII 80MHz memory seems strange... an error or a sh**** memory?

 

Thanks for the answer Andrei. About the backlight, this is something I just can't bear, maybe I'm a bit "anal retentive" like you Could you make a picture of the screen with some black background showing the thing precisely? I'd be very grateful.

 

Hi n3ox,

Well, mine is already re-boxed and sealed waiting to go to the winner of my ebay auction so I couldn't easily un-package it again. I'm really sorry. However, check out these two pics from our fellow forum members. This represents its pretty well.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/tony.heng/SPJHZ1J1phI/AAAAAAAAACU/kqIUgVOtOAs/s640/P1000719.JPG

http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=25301&d=1223492449

Thanks.

Andrei

 

This is terrible, on the second pic, backlight is almost everywhere lol !

 

Yeah, tell me about it! Mine was a little worse than this. NOT acceptable for a $2k laptop if you ask me.

 

Dell technician is coming next week to pick it up, then I get my refund. Thank god.

 

Is your review going to be up soon on NBR, Prince Phoenix? Or maybe it is possible you send it to me in a PM?
I was also wondering, are there the same problems on the E6400? I have the impression that E4300 is a bit the "failed" one of the E-series...