Trying to decide between E6400 and T400...

For me, switchable graphics is not a selling point since I will be using the integrated (can't afford switchable graphics and all the other options such as the 5300 wifi, 6-cell battery, WXGA LED, DVD/RW, etc.)

 

Well.. if you buy new, you can negotiate (just ask) a price and MAY get the Nvidia solution for free with Dell or a price drop.
My system was 2024$ and I paid ~1638$ before taxes with free shipping. Price in Canadian, that was back in November.

 

I went to Microcenter today to check out their Thinkpad stock. They had a T400 out on display and I played around with it for 15 minutes or so.

Things I noticed:
-The rubberized lid was less "rubberized" than I thought it would be. It felt more like grippy hard plastic.
-There was some keyboard flex when pressing hard and there was some chassis flex when gripping on both ends and bending it up or down.
-The trackpoint was very good, alot better than the one I have used on a D630.
-The keyboard did not blow me away. There was nothing wrong with the typing experience, but nothing truly exceptional.
-The overall quality of the built was average in my opinion. I was expecting something very solid but there was flex in the palm rest and other places.
-The off-center screen bothered me at first, but I got used to it a bit.
-The lid didn't close all the way. There was a little bit of play when latched shut.

Overall, I was a little disappointed. However, it must be said that this was a demo unit and could have suffered some sustained abuse.

I'm planning on waiting for a particularly good E6400 to show up on the Dell outlet before buying.

 

The E6400 has a DisplayPort that lets you connect to a digital display, like an HDTV or an LCD monitor. This is useful. The T400 only allows digital display connections if you buy the dock.

 

I have both E6400 and T400. I like the overall built quality of T400 better. E6400 covers get scratches too easily.

 

Well that is because it's in metal... plastic is black all the way trough.

The Dell Latitude is not one of those laptop that you don't have to care on it, and start staking them up with dirty pads from other laptop, throw them around or in a school environment. The Dell Precision series takes that place, like the Precision M2400 which was a slightly more powerful GPU, and a plastic "rugged" screen lid over the Latitude E6400... the rest is identical (excluding the price).

The Latitude E series is for individual people that want a high performance, sturdy, packed with features and the latest technology (for a laptop), all with a long battery life, all providing you high mobility (it's 14inch and not 17inch)). I think it targets engineering and computer scientists, and their students, medical related students, software (not gaming) programmers/developers, and light CAD'ing related job and computational arts students. Well anyone who need a powerful system on to go and be it the most portable. To say the truth, all it needs is a Geforce 9600M and it could be classified as a portable gaming laptop (sorry, a 17/19inch laptop is not portable).

 

sorry, but they ARE designed to do that, and the precision series has a magnesium alloy lid as well. look at pretty much any corporate deployment and you will see the "stacking" going on.

Its the Vostro and E5x00 series that have polycarbonate base and lid.

 

Well you just said your self it scratches. DO that with HP/Toshiba/some Acer Home laptop... glossy plastic shell shows and does scratch very easily, as they were not designed for such environment.
What you are doing, is like taking the Latitude E6400 regular and do exactly the same stuff as in the video of the Latitude E6400 XFR. It's not water proof, will not work in a desert storm and will not live after a 2 floor height drop (exaggeration).

A toy car is in plastic, you can't key a toy car easily, but a real car even the really expensive ones, are easy to do.

As I said, it's not designed for this. It's for INDIVIDUALS, not school/corporate deployment. Lenovo's laptops or other Dell laptops are, not this one. All the marketing around the Latitude E series is all about individual's who needs a system on the go for buissness purposes, it says "it has class", "executive/CEO-type laptop", "I have a fancy car parked outside"

Look at these:
http://www.vallex.am/products/notebooks/latitude_e4300c.jpg
http://www.vallex.am/products/notebooks/latitude_e4200c.jpg
http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/latitude-e6400.jpg
On the last picture, I never got why there is a belt, whiskey bottle and flash light, but the cigar cutter is welcome

If you miss interpreted the Latitude E series target market, and assume it's for school/corporate deployment because the laptop is at the "business" section, then sorry for the disappointment. See if you can exchange/return the laptop or sell it, and get the laptop that fits your needs.

 

the latitude and precision systems are for medium-large business...

i dont see how you can claim its for personal use. even on the dell site, its under the business section.

 

just saw your edit. im not going to continue arguing and hijack this thread, you can believe what you want, but it dosent change the fact that the latitude and precision line are designed for medium to large businesses, and corporate deployments.

i've worked with several fortune 500 firms, and i know what im talking about. almost all of them use dell latitudes for corproate deployment, ordering 1000's of units for their staff globally.


EDIT: Ah ok, you seem to have mixed up "ruggedness" with corporate deployment. Corporate deployment just means the organisation purchases units for their staff, up to and including the CEO, and yes, even these units get stacked in the IT room.

in my previous company, we used latitudes exclusively, from D410's right up to D830's. Some of the older ones are about 5 years old, and havent been treated well by any means, but they still look new and work fine.