Your thoughts on Latitude E6420 design

This is perhaps the greatest mystery. Why did Dell add screws while HP has moved to a bottom cover that can be removed without a screwdriver at all?

 

Lots of screws potentially gives more overall strength with less weight (the Toshiba R500 has 19 screws to give what seems to be a flimsy base and create a strong chassis). However, the E6420 has put on weight and the screw + hook arrangement seems to create problems instead of solving them).

My guess is that Dell decided to save a few $$$s. The E6400 / E6410 base can't be easy to manufacture.

John

 

This. I wasn't aware that they moved away from the single screw design of the bottom. That made doing upgrades in mass (we'd commonly get ram upgrade requests for machines before imaging) simple....I could get RAM in 5-6 E6400/E6410's in a matter of minutes, and get them ready for imaging. That doesn't appear to be the case on the new ones.

I do think that the design isn't for everyone, esp. users who grew accustomed to using the E6400 especially with its pretty much all black interior and exterior. Yes ...there was metal flake finish inside like all D+ series Latitudes..but it was so tiny to pretty much be unnoticeable until you looked super close, unlike the D series.

I'll need to reserve judgement until I see one in person, that's how I discovered the D630's looks...I saw one in use at my high school and was hooked...I had to have one. I kinda equate it to how some cars look horrible until you see them in the flesh. I will say that watching the system in video form with it in motion and being used, makes the new design look nice.

It doesn't look overly flash from the outside, the lid's still brushed metal..which if you think about it is pretty dammed understated in the world of multicolored fancy high gloss fingerprint magnet lids.