Latitude E6500, what's to know? Prospective buyer.

^Yea check recent pictures of Dell Notebooks on Notebook Review. All of the Dell notebooks I've seen in the past few months are from China.

Not that Made in China is a bad thing anymore these days (I have a feeling that India/Vietnam will be the center of criticism in terms of manufacturing a few years down the road, as labor costs in China continue to go up, but I digress). It's just so sad to see how Dell's manufacturing network has been completely dismantled in just over a year (first the huge Austin plant, then Ireland and NC). Dell's cutting edge manufacturing (and arguably customer support) used to be its golden gem. What on earth happened???

 

Globalization did. But we digress...

I'd like to mention that I was a bit skeptical about my E6400 coming from Poland instead of Ireland, but had no problems (my first E6400 was a lemon but it was clearly damaged in transport and not in manufacturing).

 

That's what happens as a business evolves and expands to a larger entity. They had to become more "efficient" and ramp up production while cutting costs. I don't blame them, and by all means, it doesn't really matter to me where it's "made in" perse, just as long as who's managing it, do they run a tight ship?

I mean, shoot, when Toyota and Honda first moved manufacturing to the U.S., they originally had problems(perhaps things were lost in translation?) too. Quality assurance was down, etc. But now they seemed to have things nailed for the most part at those plants.

I just hope and trust, whoever is in charge of the plant has high expectations and whoever operates the machines(CNC) knows what their doing. The other is on Dell's part, I hope they have higher expectations for their products and streamline manufacturing processes to put out consistent products. IE: if they had specialized methods of painting their frames and chassis at each plant so they were durable and long lasting... it appears as of now that some people do have peeling/chipping paint, while others don't, rather sloppy and inconsistent of them.

Under ideal management and circumstances(manufacturing process), eventually it shouldn't matter much where it's made in, as long as they were all built consistently the same, and use the same raw materials. And that's what I'd hope to at least see one day with Dell...but again, I don't know their goals, I don't know their long term plans.