Dell Latitude E6400 First Look

Congratulations beautiful laptop

 

No. That's 3DMark05. IThis is the Intel GPU and it's a bit lower than the ~1500 reported by notebookcheck. 3DMark06 is giving 786 for 1GB RAM and 893 for 2GB RAM.

I haven't done any graphics performance optimisations or looked for any better driver.

John

 

John

Thanks for your review. I decided to cancel my M2400 Precision order today and order an E6400. Since the Bluetooth option was not available when I ordered my M2400, I was tempted to re-order anyway. Now that I have some 3rd party review of the E6400, it just sounds too good to pass up and I know there is not much difference between the E6400 and the M2400 except for some cosmetics.

It also didn't delay my delivery date much. My original order was placed on the 18th of August with an anticipated ship date of 09/11. After re-ordering, my ship date changed to 09/16.

 

Great mini-review! Thanks a lot! Just two questions:

1) How solid/sturdy is the E6400 (especially compared to the Thinkpad T400). Does the build quality of the E6400 stands up to the "legendary"(?) Thinkpads?

2) How loud is the Hard Disk?

 

I hope you are not disappointed.

1. I've not had an encounter with a recent Thinkpad but my overall impression is that the E6400 is well built with lots of metal (I'm wondering how well the airport x-ray machines can see through it!). Personally, I would have preferred less metal and less weight. It is all very solid except for a little flex in the keyboard.

2. The hard disk is barely audible, which is probably a combination of being surrounded by solid materials and it being a Samsung HM160HI (Samsung tend to be quieter than average). In addition, there is an option in the BIOS to select the HDD accoustic management to quiet mode.

John

 

John, could you answer my questions on page 5?

 

I breathed a huge sigh of relief after reading this. My own E6400 order is now validated.

 

Too many questions and \i can't answer them all.

1. If the 6 cell can manage 6 hours then the 9 cell battery should be good for 9 hours. Note that this is light usage. Web browsing via wireless looks to knock the 6 hours down to about 5 hours (ie average 11 watt power drain). Also, this is with the Intel graphics.

I can't comment about the Sony SR. Isn't it a size smaller?

I haven't a clue when Dell will make the different colours available.

The web cam is only 0.3 megapixels. So far, I haven't worked out a way to capture / view an image from the web cam.

Speaker quality is better than the worst but those grilles each side of the keyboard are deceptive. There is only something which looks to be about 1/2" diameter underneath which produces sound that is rich in treble ("tinny" is the adjective normally used).

John

 

John,

what is your estimate, how much would a dedicated GPU shave off from the 5h with a 6cell? At this point im not sure whether to go with integrated graphics or not.
And another question, would a 7200rpm HDD be more audible/use considerably more battery than a 5400rpm HDD?

 

The only comparison I can see at the moment is in the T500 review where the dedicated graphics was said to push up the idle power drain by about 2W. I would see that as the minimum difference since ATI are now using a smaller process than nVidia and, in general, a smaller process means less power. The other shred of evidence is that the 12.1" Samsung Q210 which has the 9200M GS (similar, according to notebookcheck, to the NVS160M) managed 5 hours on battery with the wireless off (the reader test result) but has only a 12.1" screen. At the moment, until there are some definite results, I would assume that you could lose up to an hour. A further, and potentially bigger, variable, is the variation in the CPU power consumption. The T series can be expected to use more power while there is also power consumption variability between CPUs with the same model number.

HDD noise depends significantly with the brand. The BIOS includes an acoustic management setting option if you want less noise. In general, 7200rpm HDDs use more power than the same generation of 5400rpm HDDs. Tom's hardware has charts of idle and maximum power consumption. I would approximate the average, under light usage, as being 3/4 idle and 1/4 maximum. However, unless you know which model HDD you are getting then it's an academic study. I got one of the cheaper HDD options which I will clone onto a bigger HDD already in my possession and then keep the original HDD as backup.

What a long answer. I'm evidently find the keyboard OK.

Hope it helps.

John

 

It depends really some people that have got the Sony SR with the dedicated graphics card ATI 3470 have reported under 3 hours-3.30 minutes with wifi on. The Sony SR with integrated graphics seems to be getting about 4 hours 30-50 mins battery life with wifi on. The Sony SR uses a 6 cell 4800mAh battery.

I was getting about 4 hours with wifi on and other power saving measures in place when i owned a previous laptop with dedicated graphics.

There are some laptops that use a dedicated card that have good battery life and there are some that don't have as good battery life.

 

Yeh, I meant the SR with the IGP.

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Thanks for this nice first look, this E6400 just looks perfect to me !

Anyway to test the Display Port connection to an HDTV or a monitor with a Display Port to HDMI adapter to ensure that it works fine and drive display & sounds ?

Since months I'm looking for a business class 14" laptop to plug to my HDTV but this is something rare

 

Sorry, but i can't help with this. I've got nothing I can plug into the DisplayPort.

John

 

Very good on the first look thing ... I just got back from the weekend vacation to find a Dell catalog in the mailbox with this machine advertising 19 hours possible of battery life and was interested to see how it would stand up....

 

19 hours might just be feasible but see the photo of the batteries.

You would need no wireless, a dim display, very light usage for the CPU and probably a power-efficient SSD.

John

 

The 6 cell battery does not stick out of the back, does it? (like the 6 cell in Lenovo T400).

Also, is it worth it to choose Vista ultimate over Vista business? What are the differences? As it is now, Vista ultimate is the only one that you can get in 64bit (at least in Denmark). But still, is it worth it? I know that 32 bit will not recognize more than 3 GB ram, but will there be a noticeable different if choosing 4 GB, using 32bit or 64bit?

 

The 6 cell battery sits flush with the hinges, which protrude slightly at the back. See either the scales photo or the bottom photo.

I'll leave others to comment on the merits of Vista Ultimate.

John

 

Thanks John. Yeah, that was what I thought when I looked at the pictures, but just wanted to be sure.

I hope that someone can help me on the windows matter, and wheter or not the last GB of RAM (from 3 to 4) will be noticeable.

 

Perhaps you will find this comparison useful.

Right now, there are very little advantages to using a 64bit OS outside of being able to break the 3-4GB RAM barrier. To be fair, there are very few disadvantages to a 64bit Vista either. Unless your needs are demanding more than 3GB of RAM I would say that 64bit is not worth the cost for you.

As for the differences between Vista Business and Ultimate...

The most telling difference is that Biz does not have the Media Center software most commonly used for watching TV. Additionally, Biz does not have the DVD authoring tools you may or may not use.

There are some other tech features found only in Ultimate that may interest you, like SUA or Secure Startup. However, unless you use them now I do not think you'll miss them.

Do you want to be able to switch the OS language? That alone would make Ultimate worth it I bet.

Anyway, this is where I am going with this...I do not think Vista Ultimate is worth it, unless you currently use similar features in XP.

 

Thank you very much for your reply. Well, I have tried XP home and vista home premium, but never business, so I was wondering if there would be some features that I would miss in the biz version. Sounds like I should just stick with getting a business version if home premium is not an option.

 

If you had XP Home and didn't "miss" anything, than Vista Biz would actually be a small improvement as you get some networking goodies you didn't have before.

 

Hey John,
What does the bottom look like with the cover on?

 

This is exactly my question too. But I'm not positive. Very likely the PM45/GM45 chipset doesn't really support audio over DisplayPort.

 

Smooth! With very short feet.

Intel's datasheet 320122 for the PM45/GM45 includes statements such as:

However, the best evidence will be for someone to say that the audio is there.

John

 

I've ordered (on the 25/8 with EDD 2/10) my E6400 with the Display Port to HDMI and also the Display Port to DVI adapters. I will post the functionality on both as soon as get my hands on the machine...

 

Yes, if you look at the GM45 datasheet you'll find the audio features are all listed under iHDMI but not DisplayPort. I have a post discussing this issue in AVS forum: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14497424#post14497424

 

That's great! I'm waiting for your update. Remember to install the lastest GM45 driver and try DP-to-HMDI with AV receiver (repeater mode) and Flat TV.

 

My unit is shipping with the nVidia card so no GM45 drivers for me, but will use my Flat TV.

 

many thx for this nice preview john. if its not to late, could u plz say something about the fan noise? thx a lot mate

 

I thought I had said something, somewhere. Anyway, my E6400 (P8600 + Intel graphics) is quiet under light usage but when the fan goes to its faster speed then it is quite noticeable (loud purr rather than a whine). It takes 2 or 3 minutes of full CPU load to trigger the extra speed but once it cuts in then it stays on for some time. I think Dell have put a time component into the fan rules which, I suspect, is to reduce the thermal cycling of the nVidia GPUs.

John

 

oh iam sry, i've accidently skipped that part but thx for answering, when will we get to see ur review?

 

i thought dell does not cover the battery regardless of warranty.

IMO they should have put in a hdmi instead of displayport

have you tried the x4500 with HD video? apparently x4500 is supposed to offload video play back from the cpu to the x4500.

 

Well, the display port can become DVI or HDMI...so that's a good way to get both.

 

Plus, and I could be wrong, but I think they'd have to pay licensing fees and royalties to implement the hardware. Thus, saving us money on the consumer end.

 

Adding a HDMI port is only $0.03 per device. So this license fee is indeed nothing from the consumer respect. Dell is the largest member of the DP alliance.

 

Does your laptop have the built in GPS?

 

I've tried playing the two Microsoft Terminator 2 HD trailers. For the 720p same the CPU spends most of its time at 800MHz but speeds up to 1.6GHz for the 1080p sample (both in Windows Media Player and on my 1440 x 900 display). The temperature got up to about 45C.

For comparison, using T7300 + Intel 965GM, the CPU runs at 1.6GHz most of the time for 720p playback and is maxed out by the 1080p with, I think, some missed frames.

I think this is good evidence that the GM45 is doing what it claims and taking a lot of the decoding work off the CPU.

No. I have yet to see this as an option and it is not described in the service manual.

John

 

John, I can't wait to read your full review. Any idea when you might have finished it? Thanks!

 

It's got to be this week (since I'm taking the E6400 out into the real world). It will also be somewhat lengthy. The more I use it the more I find to comment on.

John

 

That sounds great!

More advantages or more disadvantages? Would like to order mine at the end of this week.

 

Hmm... that worries me. Does this mean that the fan is always on, even in light use (word, excel, internet explorer, etc.) and what about idle?
I am considering the E6400 or the Lenovo T400, and this is definitely a crucial issue, and if it is actually the case that the fan runs constantly, then it definitely sounds as if the T400 is a much quieter machine (?).

 

It's not perfect (that extra weight still needs to be accounted for) and a lot of my current niggles are with the software / BIOS, where I hope Dell will make further improvements in response to feedback.

Under idle/ light usage the fan is either off or on its slow speed, which is almost inaudible. It needs a couple of minutes of heavy CPU usage to trigger the fast fan speed (this may be less time for a higher powered CPU and/or dedicated GPU), which is noticeable in a quiet room (I haven't yet had my E6400 in a noisy environment to know whether the fan is so noticeable).

John

 

Just curious John - why does your review say Bluetooth was not available? Mine was ordered with a Bluetooth module

430-3090 1 Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth 2.1 Minicard for Latitude E/Mobile Precision

 

Because I ordered on 12th August. The Bluetooth option only arrived a week or so back.

John

 

Hi John, would you please elaborate on the details of the optical sata connector when you post your full review?

I was hoping to use something like this as a way to slip a 2nd hdd into the optical bay on a montevina notebook that doesn't have a swappable media bay. e.g. the latitude e5400 or the revised Vostro's when they arrive. If the sata/power connector is not the standard type then obivously this wont work but i may be able to find another solution...

...as much as I like the latitude e6 series - they are quite expensive for a decent config here in Aus and Esata is all well and good but still requires a USB connection for power - and the disk sits outside the main chassis.

thanks,

Peter

 

I had also thought about putting an HDD into the bay. However, it is a smaller SATA connector than is used on a HDD so it will need some sort of adaptor. The eSATA port works fine.

John

 

A very good and detailed "First Look", John. I cannot await to read your full review, because I am still indecisive - like many others - whether to buy the Lenovo T400 or the Dell E6400.

Just a short question: Is it possible, even for a layman like me, to buy a HDD now and later on (let's say when they are affordable) a SSD to upgrade my notebook with and displace the HDD?

Regards,
Olli

 

It is possible. Any standard 2.5" SATA drive (HDD or SSD) should fit. You can either reinstall everything or use cloning software to make an exact copy of the HDD onto an SSD temporarily placed in an external enclosure.

John

 

Hi John,
Great first look!
Will you give some impressions of the new BIOS in your full review? Can't wait to see it. Just ordered a new E6500 yesterday! yay!