Latitude E4300 first impressions

I got mine yesterday, so I just wrote a short "pre-"review about the E4300.
If you are interested in it check http://zoryfl.wmw.cc

 

I got same problem with my hard disk as N3ox, it worked weird so I run HD Tune and here is the result:

unitedstatesof.net/temp/HDTune_Benchmark_ST9160411ASG.png

Maybe guys try to run HD Tune as well if there is something wrong with your E4300 hdd...

 

I just ran HDDtune and this is the outcome of it:


I'm wondering~ I did not have such a spiky line as n3ox but still my average speed is around 6mb/s less..
Other than that my HDD seems to be okay, doesn't it?
Weird stuff..


edit: Oh wow.. compared to the HDDtune pic in the User review, mine looks screwed as well.. anyone here is kind "pro" with these things and can tell if my HDD is a fail or not?

 

Look at my, it's screwed as well. The problem is that when I play music or video it get's stuck every randomly for a half second and that is really very annoying. Here when running HD Tune it get's stuck every 1 second so I think the problem must be connected somehow to my hard disk. Don't you guys have same problem with music/video playing?

 

Actually I have not experienced that phenomenon.. I played music from youtube and watched videos from youtube, vimeoh,.. Never had something like what you described. I did not get the feeling as my HDtune was stuck in any moment, as well..

I will just download some music and play it to re-test what you just said.


edit: just listened to 5minutes of music and it never hang once. Seems as my hdd is at least not as fcked up as yours is..

 

I got mine last week, two months after placing the order!

I've had a selection of Dell Latitudes before - C610, D400, D600, D420 and D430. The D430 was the best of the bunch. Logical, I guess. I missed having the built in CD drive when I was out and about - I had the media slice but what's the point of an ultra-portable with add-ons? So I thought about the E4200 (which I've got here as well) but decided that the E4300 would be the best compromise of size and functionality.

Appearance
I think I prefer it to the D430. Its a nice looking machine but I wish the palm-rest was brushed like the cheaper Latitudes and Vostros. Got a E5400 here and it looks nicer with the brushed/dull palm rest, but it doesn't have the brushed lid of the E4300. The dock looks good as well. I got the flat-panel stand which suspends the screen above the laptop. Quite funky looking really. Its light enough, and I like the no catch lid on it. Size wise its slightly bigger than the D4X0.The E4200 is diddy as hell. Feels a bit flimsy though. Got the wow factor though.

Performance
Most of my work is carried out on remote machines so I don't push the client. Its quick to boot and when I am working locally it certainly feels faster. I don't have any figures to back this up but if anyone wants me to run comparison tests on the D430 and this I can do - just let me know what benchmarking tools you want
When I got the D420 it was too slow with the 4,200rpm drive so I switched to the D430 with SSD which didn't blow me away, but brought the machine back to a comparable speed of a 7,200rpm drive (there's a good comparison of SSD and the new Ultra SSD to platter based disks on the Dell blog somewhere). As the E4300 will take a full sized drive I opted to install a WD Scorpio Black 250Gb drive instead of getting it with the SSD - just didn't think it was worth the extra cost.

Issues
I have no real complaints. A key fell off the back-lit keyboard already, but that'll be warranty. It doesn't get to hot and the fan behaves more than it did on the D430 - even when I had the fan control app installed it ran real hot.
WWAN....or lack of....It seems that after three attempts to get the correct quote from my Dell rep the WWAN option got dropped for webcam Guess I should have checked the quote through rather than just checking for the amendments I'd asked for. Plus there's no option to add WWAN card when ordering - but I could shift the 5520(?) card from my D430, but now I've no aerial so probably stuck. Not sure what I could do about this.
Latitude ON - not got it. Installed reader but it requires offline/cashed mode of Outlook that I don't use. Would like to have the option to surf the web from the Latitude ON so guess I'll be upgrading when available. Think Dell have really messed up with the available information on Latitude ON.

Cost
Well its not my money so I'm not really bothered. People who are saying its too expensive are missing the point of the Latitude range. By comparing Latitude to Sony Vaios is wrong. You want to be looking at the Studio and XPS range. Latitudes provide all the business benefits of standard platform, long road-maps, cross-compatible hardware and advanced client management tools. Its not a consumer or single purchase executive device. There's nothing to stop you buying one, but don't complain and claim Dell have priced themselves out of the market.

So, I'm happy with it. I will be totally satisfied once I get 3G sorted - oh, and what happened to GPS that was mentioned in the press-releases? Fits my requirements perfectly. Just got to wait for everyone else to catch up so I can dock away from the office

Boris

 

Hi All,

Thought I'd add my two-pence worth in. New here. Found this thread helpful in making my mind up and I just got my E4300 last week. First impressions are good. My previous machine was a D810 and after lugging that heavy lump around for three years the E4300 is wonderful!
The keyboard is not quite as responsive and pleasant to type on as the D810 as others have said. However, it's not a bad keyboard at all and you quickly get used to it. Having the Home/End/PageUp/PageDn keys in the wrong place messes with your head at first but you learn. And the backlit option is definitely worth having in my view.
It's a pretty quick machine, although I did pimp it out and get the ultra-performance SSD. It's silent unless the fan pipes up, which actually isn't that often. It's definitely light, and the bottom of it hardly gets hot at all (mind you that's compared to a D810 which is a furnace).

Comparisons are made everywhere to Lenovo X300/X301 and Sony Z and I made the same comparisons before I bought it. The simple fact of the matter though is that the Dell is substantially cheaper (I imagine it'd knock seven bells out of the Lenovo in terms of performance too, although same not said for the Sony). Now with Dell pricing obviously depends somewhat on your relationship with the salesperson on the end of the phone, how much you order and so on. I order machines for a very small business, typically buying 4-5 machines a year. I managed to get a full spec E4300 (max ram, processor, ultra ssd, mobile broadband, bluetooth, Office, docking station) for way less than what I would have paid for Sony or Lenovo.

Hope this is useful

Cheers

 

Good news.... mine had shipped.

Bad news.... the packing slip I have found online shows that they put in the standard and not backlit keyboard. I checked the e-quote and we specified the backlit and we paid for it as well!

Bloody Dell. I will be giving them a real earfull because they have now screwed up the order in addition to the contract manager repeatedly failing to return my communications.

 

Sorry,I think i don't understand this point
With this you mean that this notebook has nothing to envy to Lenovo and Sony Z or that this is simply in another range of price, so it can't be compared with the two mentioned?
Thanks!!

P.S. I've just ordered one, now it's on production

 

Hi guys, it's me having a question again~

As I am currently working on my full review, I just came across a weird thing again. On the (german) Dell website, the only available RAM is a 800MhZ DDR3 RAM.

Now just have a look at the following pictures and tell me if I got the right RAM or not- because I do not have a clue.

Note the frequency and the 2 pictures one time saying DDR2 and one time DDR3



Thanks in advance!