Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

How can it be a driver (ie SOFTWARE) issue if you are physically hitting the touchpad and then it works? Does the driver (software) know when it is being manhandled?

Just trying to prove my point that it is, in fact, hardware related.

 

Firm press to touchpad => Driver functions called => Sorts itself out

OR

Firm press to touchpad => Hardware sorts itself out => Driver finally sorts itself out

At this point it could go either way...if this happens with Vista drivers, it is definitely hardware. If it happens ONLY with the Dell drivers, software issue.

 

Define your own power plan in ControlPoint and set the brightness where you want it. The Dell power plans use whatever brightness levels you have set in the BIOS (so go there as well and put the brightness to sensible values. 2 on battery and 8 on mains suits me).

John

 

Are the speakers really that bad? Aren't they at least an improvement over the D630?

 

The speakers aren't that bad. They are certainly at least average, and unlike the D630, it's actually stereo.

You can't get much worse than D630 speakers, or so I have read.

Greg

 

Well, I've never owned a D630, so I don't know. But I came from a ragged out 2004 Toshiba 14" that had two 1.25" Harmon/Kardon speakers in it and they were great. I didn't realize just how good those speakers were until I didn't have them no more. So, I took a step down speakerwise and it is painfully noticable to me. But don't get me wrong, other than that, I love my new Dell.

 

The thing is Ferris, most notebooks of this size sound about on par with the E6400. There is the odd notebook here and there with above average speakers.

Oh, and the D630 had one small monospeaker and no speaker grille whatsoever.

Greg

 

I was originally planning on buying a D630 until the E6400 came along...However, hearing these bad reports has made me rethink my decision to buy an E6400.

Any reason why I should stick with the D630? They seem priced about the same.

 

I hope you don't plan on using the speaker (no, not speakers) on the D630.

The screen is still better than the D630 from what I've read, with few exceptions the build quality has been absolutely excellent.

Really, the speakers are by no means horrible, they are average, and I must say that they are actually very clear.

The only consistant issue that would concern me is the audio problems in XP and the DVD-RW drive.

Greg

 

I would only consider the D630 is it was a lot (25%) cheaper than the E6400 or you wanted the bay battery option. The E6400 isn't perfect but it is nearer perfection than its predecessor.

My only grumble is the E6400's weight (and that's Dell's fault for weighing a model without any parts inside), but the D630 is even heavier and would need a bigger battery to match the same run time (so heavier still). And, whatever, the complaints about the E6400 display, I'm sure it is a lot better than what the D630 offers.

Of the various grumbles, perhaps the only one that is hard for Dell to properly fix is the miniscule speakers. They could, however, tweak the drivers. This is a new model and we haven't yet seen any driver and software updates.

John