Dell Latitude E5410

The Dell Latitude E5410 is a laptop built for business that doesn’t skimp on features, but strikes just the right balance that it won’t break the bank, either. It seems Dell has done their best to build a machine that doesn’t compromise too much, but that still comes in below average on price. Let’s take a look ‘under the hood’.

The first thing you’ll notice opening the Latitude E5410 up is the screen. It’s 14.1 inches (measured at a diagnol), supports a native resolution of 1440×900 pixels, and is LED-backlit, so colors appear clearly and contrast is consistent across it. We’re very happy to see that this is becoming more standard on portable computers these days.

The heavy lifting is handled primarily by an Intel Core i5 520M dual-core chip at 2.4 GHz, with a 3MB L2 cache. Multitasking on the machine is smooth, and due to its clock frequency, it stacks up well against typical desktops. Heat output is fairly low compared to the higher-clocked i7 parts, and as you might expect, this also keeps battery life from being impacted too harshly under heavy load.

Our review model came fitted with 3GB of RAM, which is a slightly odd number to see. However, it makes no noticeable performance impact in most applications, even using the memory-hungry Windows 7. Since a Core i5-series CPU is being used, it’s no surprise to see that the memory employed here is the newest available, DDR3.

Our model came with a 250GB 7200RPM hard drive by Western Digital. Some other storage options are available, but for a cheap laptop like this, we wouldn’t expect an enormous amount of storage. 250GB should be more than enough for most users, and will hold a substantial library of music, photos, movies, and standard office documents with room to spare.

Wireless is of course included, and we’d be quite concerned if it weren’t. The model on offer is an Intel chipset, model 6200AGN. It supports Draft-N, so it will be compatible with the latest other Draft-N access points you may wish to use in your home, as well as the standard A/G/B points you are likely to find at coffee shops, libraries and the like. We found range to be about on par with notebooks, maintaining a stable connection at the other end of the office with 2+ bars, well within usable range. Using wireless knocked about 90 minutes off the battery life of the laptop.

While we are on that topic, the included battery on our test unit was 9-cell, with the typical Lithium-Ion battery chemistry. This battery protrudes a little from the back of the unit. This machine can also be purchased with a standard 6-cell battery that will sit flush with the edge of the unit. This will of course yield less battery life, but reduces cost. The included one has a capacity of 85 Watt Hours (WH), and yielded about 5.5 hours of life in our web browsing test with the wireless enabled. Very impressive!

From a physical standpoint, build quality of the unit appeared quite high. Measuring at 13.3 long by 9.6 wide by 1.31 inches thick and weighing 5.21 pounds, the unit is small enough to tuck under your arm and take to and from work or school every day, but not nearly as light as a netbook would be. You can decrease the weight a bit by using the 6-cell battery instead, but it’s not a huge difference.