Lenovo X200 vs Dell E4300

Dell's new E4300 will be available tomorrow. Its screen is 1 inch bigger, with LED backlight, and it also includes a fixed DVD drive for pretty much the same weight. Hmmm... it looks really slick too.

I was going to order an X200, but now the E4300 got my eye. I wonder how much Dell is going to charge for this E4300. If the price is reasonable, this laptop might provide more value for the money.

 

I saw the LED screen on E6400 today but I was not impressed. It certainly is bright but contrast is to weak in my opinion. Colors look unimpressive. I hope they do better on E4300.

I read that the screen on X200 isn't very good either.

 

I am going to be making my decision between these laptops as well - thanks for starting the talk. Of course we should know about pricing tomorrow, but how does the low voltage processor that will be in the 4300 stack up against the P8600 you can get in the x200? Everything i've read says the x200 performs really well with that configuration. I can get by with the lower quality screen with an external monitor - I just want the performance. Also, from what i've heard about the 6400, the weight is going to be higher than what Dell has listed.

 

If you are going to stop at E4300 with low voltage CPU, why not wait for the release of x200s. x200s is much slimer and lighter than x200, comes with a LED backlight, which x200 doesn't have.

Both of their release were postponed by the stupid intel. Since the E4300 comes out tomorrow, does that mean the coming of x200s? Some people tells x200s will come out in Nov, hopes it won't.

 

I'm facing the same decision. I wanted an x301, but it's too pricey, so I was looking very hard at x200, and even SL300. But now the e4300 has me wondering. If the price is comparable, I will be very tempted. It even has a trackpoint! I had not considered Dell at all, but this looks like an extensive redesign and direction change on their part. It looks, in fact, like an attempt to make Thinkpad-like features more affordable(securtiy, durability,size, etc).
Suddenly I've gone from a situation where the Thinkpads and the even more expensive HPs are my only options to looking a new Dell design. I would love to see a side by side comparison review of x200,x301, and e4300.

 

German pricing for the E4200 and E4300 is up:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3923842&postcount=21

Not quite what you are asking for, but here is a thread I made comparing the E4200 and X200s:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=286140

 

I just went on the Germany site:

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/p...debsdt1&a=47079~0~237376&navla=47079~0~237376

and it says:
Ausgangsgewicht von 2,75 kg
Weight starting at 2.75kg

That's a whopping 6.05lbs...please tell me that's a mistake...

 

It's a mistake. Should be 1.5KG:

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/p...s=debsdt1&id=laptop_latitude_e4300&l=de&s=bsd

 

The weight on the german site is definitely wrong. Unless the're quoting the shipping weight whici doesn't make any sense either.

 

Maybe they meant 2.75 lbs...without the battery or the optical drive (replaced by that plastic Travel Lite module).

Does anyone know if the 3.30lbs is including a battery (not the extended life one) and the cd/dvd drive? If not, the laptop could easily amount to 4+ lbs which wouldn't be very attractive compared to the competition...
At the moment, the fine print states "weight varies according to configuration"

 

Laptops in Europe are always more expensive. So the $1350 E4300 in Europe means it could be whole a lot cheaper in U.S. Looks really tempting now.

 

Count me in this boat as well. Waiting to see some reviews of the E4300 and the X200s before I make my decision though.

 

E4300 uses the fast P8400, P8600 CPUs, not the ultra low voltage CPU, which is on E4200. X200 is similar to E4300. X200s is similar to E4200.

 

Ah, nevermind. The e4300 is starting at $1,749 with only 1 gig of RAM.

 

Hmmm...when will the 30% off coupon show up?

 

I was hoping for higher resolution on the e4300, but WXGA is a no good for me.

I guess i'll have to decide between the Vaio Z and the X300 for my next lappie... better display vs better keyboard.

 

Wow those Dells are coming in a lot more expensive than I expected. I will wait and see what the X200s brings to the table.

 

Did anybody else notice that the E4300 is using the Intel SP9xxx series? Same TDP as the P9xxx/P8xxx parts, but with the small form factor. Interesting!

And btw, looks like it has a 3-cell and a 6-cell battery. I'm willing to bet that 3.3lbs is with the 3-cell battery.

Looks like people really had some hope, but everyone here is gonna end up going back to Lenovo

 

Yeah, similar however the X200 build quality is much better mainly because of the magnesium alloy roll cage and case along with full-size water resistant keyboard. The E4200 also has magnesium alloy but lacks a roll cage underneath making it less rigid and I'm quite sure the keyboard will have major flex. To Dell's credit, they are trying to emulate the IBM quality with this and it does look pretty and has 2 speakers which are far better quality than the X200's mono speaker config. Expect to pay more though...

Update to 2.4, 2Gb ram, 64GB SSD, wifi-link, Vista Basic, and 6 cell battery

Latitude E4300
Price $2,417

Lenovo X200
Same configuration (except add 9 cell battery) I paid for during my order: $1,449

Use CPP with Lenovo and the price is even better....

Is a slightly larger and prettier screen, touch pad and DVD-rom worth over $1,000 more? This laptop is priced in the X301 range and probably should be compared to that..

 

The new E4300 is price way above the x200 while offering pretty much the same thing. I agree with Supermans that it should be compared to the x301, or at least the x300.

 

Over here (Sweden) the Dells are rather competetive when put against the X200:

E4300 with SP9400, 4 GB RAM, 250 GB (5400rpm) HDD, Intel WiFi Link 5300, 6 cell battery, backlit keyboard and 3 years basic warranty costs ~15 800 SEK (~$2350 according to xe.com).

X200 with P8600, 2x 1 GB RAM, 250 GB (5400rpm?) HDD, Intel WiFi Link 5300, 6 cell battery, UltraBase with DVD-RW and 3 years warranty costs ~16 200 SEK (~$2410).

Surprisingly, the X200 models without docks aren't much cheaper. There are several models with P8600, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD and no dock priced between ~13 900 - ~16 000 SEK. I guess there's a difference if they're using 2x 1 GB or 1x 2 GB RAM, but rpm speed isn't specified and I believe only one of them is sold with 9 cell instead of 6 cell battery. I don't know why there's so many different models with so similar specs.

Something that also makes the X200 more expensive is that you cannot customize it (again, over here). I want one with the 9 cell battery, 250 GB HDD, 1x 2 GB RAM (or possibly 2x 2 GB), 5300 (I think all of them are using this, fortunately) and P8600. Combining the RAM, battery and HDD seems impossible, so I'm probably going to end up purchasing the 9 cell battery separately, and more RAM when it's cheaper (2x 2 GB since most models are offered with 2x 1 GB).

 

Well, in Sweden your taxes are through the roof already so I ask is the price you are quoting before or after taxes.. Where I am at, the taxes are at 7% for my county and I ended up paying $1,449 US dollars. $1550.43 after taxes. (my configuration is below)

I'm just curious on this issue. I hope you can get a good deal as the Dell would seem like the better deal in your case considering the price of the X200 is much higher in comparison to the E4300's price which is closer to the US price. I would get in your case the E4300 as it is a better deal money-wise and offers the same capabilites and higher quality speakers.

Using CPP pricing today, I calculated the price of the configuration below at $1763.7 after a 7% sales tax.
Mine comes out to $1550.42 after 7% tax which means I'm still $213.28 in savings compared to their current best cpp offer. Without any discounts applied from their main wesbite, the price of the configuration below is $2,424.00 before taxes. The same configuration on the Lenovo website with the current discount is $1,939.20(non-cpp) before taxes. I was one of the lucky ones here in the US that got the free solid state drive as an upgrade on day 1. However the Cpp price has gotten real close to catching up since the price of the 64GB SSD has almost been cut in half. I wish you luck and hope you do get the best laptop for your needs.

The Dell E4300 is more attractive and has an illuminated keyboard, much nicer screen and similar body structure even though it lacks a roll-cage and waterproof keyboard. Everything else is the same so it comes down to price and looks..



Order date: 08/05/08

Lenovo X200

1 7454CT CONFIGURED SYSTEM
$1,449.00 $1,449.00
44C5186 SBB INTCORE2DUOPROCT8600(2,4GH
42V8012 VBB MS WIN VISTA HOME BASIC
43Y3317 SBB GWV HOMEBASIC 32 US ENG.
44C5190 SBB 2X2UL.CON.II ANT.,WWAN,CAM
42X6305 SBB 2GBPC3-8500 1067MHZ2DIMM
44C5216 SBB KEYBOARD US ENGLISH
43Y5779 SBB TRACKPOINT
44C5212 SBB 64GB SOL.ST,DRIVE,SER.ATA
44C5183 SBB 5-1MEDIACARDREADER+MODEM
62P6054 VBB INTEGR.BLUETOOTH PAN
42X6325 SBB INT.WIFI LINK5300
44C5194 SBB INTEGRWIRELESSWIDEAREANETW
44C5197 SBB THINKPADX200SER.9CELLENH.
41W1787 SBB CPK NORTH AMERICA
44C5249 SBB LAPACK US ENGL
Status: Shipped on 09/16/2008 More info

 

I've had the x200 for about two weeks now. My previous laptops have all been Lenovos/IBM Thinkpads, and my most recent was a a T61p, 15.4" widescreen that I bought in February or March, so pretty new. It was loaded, had the best chipset available, etc.

I switched because of weight and the need to test Vista for our company in advance of XP no longer being an option. Here are my thoughts on the X200 vis-a-vie the T61P it replaces:

1) The screen on the T61p, at 15.4" diagonal and wide, with 1920x1200 resolution, was harder to read because A) it was dimmer overall, 150 nits vs 200 nits of the x200 and B) It had less contrast available as a result and, combined with the tiny font, I found myself magnifying it to non-native resolutions. That made text larger and easier to read, but also fuzzier. Finally C) because the screen was also very sensitive to viewing angle, I found myself moving my head left to right when reading, like a parrot checking something out.

2) The 12" widescreen reminds me a great deal of my first Thinkpad, a 486SX25 with a 10.4" black and white LCD. Believe it or not, that was a good thing. I loved the tiny guy and found myself more productive on it. I just came back from a week of convention coverage using the x200 and the laptop's light weight, ease of handling and focused, bright screen made it a dream to use. The T61p was a monster to lug around and setup. The x200 is far superior, for that use.

3) Resolution: Less is More. The 1280x800 pixel count of the x200 is far less than then 1920x1200 of the T61p. But the effective resolution, ie, contrast, sharpness, brightness, readability, is far superior. I haven't had to use magnify mode for anything yet.

4) Battery life: No comparison, with the 9 cell battery, my x200 gets over 5 hours of heavy use. The T61p, lucky to see 2.5 hours out of that. Now, there's no CD/DVD drive, so "heavy use" doesn't include spinning a movie, but it includes everything else, including powering up a blackberry as a modem for a lot of that time. Weight wise, the 9 cell brings the x200 up to about 3.5 lbs, vs under 3 lbs with the 3 cell, but I need time off the grid, not a half pound savings.

5) Vista - Love or hate it, I found that, if you don't panic because they moved the cheese around, it works pretty well and I can be more productive on it than I thought in quick time. I like the "so strange it feels like an Apple" aspect of it. It has played well with most apps, except PDF Creator from SoundForge (free), so I went back to PDF995 (also free) which works well with Vista. Also, can't recommend Paint.Net highly enough, I was able to plug my camera in and using nothing but the tools included with Vista and Paint.net, get pictures and text to the show blog with no problems and much faster than I could with my t61p using corel paintshop pro, internet explorer or firefox, etc. It's just a very productive machine. Biggest complaints are losing wireless connections at home, and the occasional *** reboot.

6) Price - it's not cheap. Mine, decked with a 160 GB/7200 RPM drive, 3 GB memory, 2 GB Turbo memory, the better wireless card (but no cellular card) and bluetooth (yet to use) and the 95 watt thin powersupply with a couple of doodads to charge my ipod and blackberry simultaneously, came in with tax, around $2400. That is expensive, but ****, I'm worth it.

7) Optical and Base: At this point, I'm waiting to get the base that will allow me to add optical (but that's extra too) - overall, over $400 more to get a burner and the port replication features I need for ethernet, usb and power. Currently, all wires hang on the left side and it looks a bit sloppy in the office.

8) Heat and noise: T61p gave off too much heat, but was very quiet. The x200 gives off practically no heat and is completely silent.

Well, that's my take. I highly recommend the x200, if that's your cup of tea (it's mine).

Fred

 

Sorry, we always include taxes in our prices. All the prices I quoted included our 25 % tax.

I'm still tempted to get the X200, though. The E4300 comes with (at best) a 6 cell battery (which I guess sticks out a bit) while the X200 is available with a 9 cell. If it's possible to replace the optical drive (I would never use it) with a battery, maybe the E4300 is comparable.

Then there's the keyboard, which I assume is just plain better on the X200 (though not backlit).

 

fredmant - nice review, i'm glad to hear you like it. it's getting me more excited about mine arriving

 

Jmmmm
Glad you liked the review! I see my colorful commentary has been expunged. I guess little kids must be reading this ******* stuff.
Good luck with your x200!
Fred

 

Yes, keep the ******* language to a ******* minnimum while ******* talking about the ******* X200's ******* merits. ******* kids are ******* reading this ******* thread. ******* kapeesh.


I should be getting my X200 tomorrow as long as customs and lenovo get the information on the package corrected. I'll be throwing ribs on a BBQ and slow basting them for a nice dinner if it arrives and inviting over some friends. I'm not going to wait till Sunday Night Football for the party, I've been waiting long enough for this puppy it has to be tomorrow over whatever sport is on TV on Wednesday...