Lenovo 3000 C200 Battery

The Dell e1405 is a portable media laptop that Dell has recently released to replace the XPS M140. The E1405 has excellent battery life, a slew of multimedia functions that can make a grown man cry and the best laptop processors currently on the market.I was looking for a laptop on the smaller side of 15.4″ that would be easily portable from room to room in my house but also good on road trips where watching a movie could be the only thing to save your sanity. After trying the Compaq V4000T, which ran extremely hot and was bulky, I knew I wanted something smaller and more portable. Given a few months and I narrowed my choices down to the Dell e1405 and the Apple Macbook. But again with heat issues and the new reports of the plastic on Macbooks turning colors, and due to a better price of the Dell machine, I decided to go with the E1405. My configuraton for the e1405 came to $640 + tax due to some pretty good deals going on at the time of purchase.

I really like the Futuremark tests and 3DMark03 is my favourite for single core processors. It not only tests the video performance, but also other interesting features like audio performance. Unfortunately it does not take full advantage of multi core processor capabilities.Dell makes its play for the high-end enterprise market with the Dell Latitude 7440. The notebook looks to compete with Lenovo’s popular ThinkPad series, with its impressive specs and durable 3.9lbs. form factor. Of course those specs and sturdy design don’t come cheap. The Latitude 7440 starts an affordable $1,000, but the more impressive build that Notebook Review tested is currently listed at $1,850.

Can Dell oust Lenovo as the king of business? Read the full review to find out.The Dell Latitude 7440 features a sleek all black design. The display lid is comprised of a durable soft-touch carbon fiber material cover. It features a stylish checkered texture design that produces an attractive sheen when light bounces of the device’s protective surface.The deck utilizes the same carbon fiber material found on the display lid. But underneath the deck the notebook is anything but soft, as Dell utilizes its durable Tri-Metal chassis design. Similar to the roll cage design found on the Lenovo ThinkPad T440S, the Dell Latitude E7440 offers exceptional durability. Through thick and thin this device will hold its form.

Measuring in at 12.2″ x 8.3″ x 0.79″ and weighing in at 3.9lbs the Dell Latitude 7440 also has a similar form factor to that of the competing Lenovo ThinkPad T440s. Other 14″ ultrabooks on the market such as the Acer Aspire S7 (2.87lbs.) and the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro (3.08lbs.) offer more portable form factors, but the Latitude 7440 is still easy to travel with, especially given the device’s durable tri-metal chassis design.As a business oriented device it comes as little surprise that the Dell Latitude 7440 offers solid connectivity. The majority of the machine’s ports reside on the back side of the chassis. There the notebook features a power jack, an HDMI connector, two USB 3.0 ports, a mini DisplayPort and an Ethernet connector. The left side houses a SmartCard reader and an SD card slot. On the right hand side of the chassis the notebook offers a Kensington lock slot, a third USB 3.0 port and an audio and microphone combo jack. The Dell Latitude also comes equipped with a docking connector on the bottom of the chassis.

The Latitude 7440 houses an attractive glossy 14″ 1920 x 1080 touch display. At 198 nits the display isn’t exceptionally bright, but the glossy screen does boast vibrant color contrast. While watching a collection of streams of Notebook Review noticed that reds, blues and greens all read exceptionally well with crystal clarity; making the notebook a joy to watch videos or surf the web. The touch controls also proved to be responsive and consistent, making it a viable option for navigating Windows 8.

Despite having a glossy display, the notebook offers flexible viewing angles. On the horizontal axis image quality holds till around 180 degrees. And the display fares just as well on the vertical axis. Image quality also remains consistent in direct light. A small glint appears on screen in heavy lighting conditions, but it hardly detracts from the viewing experience. While it’s the brightest display on the market, the Dell Latitude 7440 offers beautiful and consistent viewing experience.The Dell Latitude 7440 houses a pair of speakers on the bottom of the chassis. Despite their location, the speakers manage to produce boisterous audio levels capable of comfortable filling an entire room with sound. The speakers also provide solid sound quality as the device was able to accurately detail an orchestral track at 100 percent capacity.

The one area where the Dell Latitude 7440 really falls short is its keyboard. Unlike the durable chassis, the standard LED backlit keyboard feels flimsy, easily flexing when pressure is applied. Key Travel is the one highlight for the keyboard, but the lack of tactile feedback makes each stroke feel shallow. Truthfully the keyboard is still serviceable, but it’s a far cry from premium typing experiences like the island-style keyboard on the Lenovo ThinkPad T440s.

Staying true to the old-school flavor of the enterprise-class notebook the Latitude 7440 houses a pointing stick located directly above the “B” key. The control mechanism proves to be a viable alternative to stand touchpad controls, with accurate and responsive controls.The Dell houses a moderate sized touchpad located directly below the spacebar on the keyboard. The smooth surface allows your fingers to easily traverse over the pad, affording a considerable level of sensitivity and control. Equipped with Alps drivers the touchpad also performs swipes and multi-finger gestures accurately with near instant responsiveness.

The Lenovo V100 rounds out the Lenovo 3000 series by filling in the ultraportable gap. The 12.1-inch widescreen V100 isn’t as thin and light as its cousin ThinkPad X60s, but with a built-in optical drive and 1.3 megapixel web camera it’s more integrated and perhaps more convenient for some people.You right away notice the V100 is no ThinkPad because of the rather interesting curvy design. The back of the notebook is curved, evoking the look of some of the curvier cars on the road. In physics many will have learned that a curved back-end tear drop shape is the most aerodynamic form, but I don’t think Lenovo had any ideas of accelerating this notebook up to top speeds.

The coloring is an all silver outside with black on the inside. Overall the look is quite plain, it’s not exactly exciting but steers away from being brazen, so therefore it could still be carried around as a notebook for business users — and Lenovo does fully intend to sell this to small business types.It’s easy to be captivated by the Samsung Chromebook. It has many of the same attributes of an Ultrabook including light weight, thinness, an 11.6-inch screen, and comfortable keyboard. Great battery life is another plus. All if this priced less than most tablets.

Granted, the Chromebook Series 3 isn’t going to do it for some users, especially those who need a fair amount of on-device storage, need to run applications that require significant CPU or graphics power, or who, for some reason, have significant Internet access restrictions.But as a second or travel laptop, a laptop for casual users, or an alternative to a tablet, the Samsung Chromebook should fit the bill just fine.This laptop is much smaller then I had expected. I had used a 15.4″ laptop in the past was so I was thinking a 14.1″ would be close to the same size. Another feature of the E1405 that struck me is the thickness. On paper 1.5″ sounds deep for a laptop but when carrying it around you don’t really notice it too much. I’m not a fan of the white bumpers that the e1405 and all recent Inspiron laptops carry though.

The build quality on the E1405 is nothing to write home about, but at the same time it isn’t bad. When picking the laptop up from one corner you can hear it creaking, but I still feel confident enough picking it up with one hand. Another weak point is the hinges. When pushing on the inside of the hinges you can hear a cracking sound that isn’t too pleasant. Also, when the laptop is closed if you’re looking at it from the front you can see a small gap on the right side between the laptop and the LCD. It’s almost as if the plastic was warped.

This laptop feels blazing fast. I’ve tried modeling with multiple instances of Rhino CAD software open and it’s been able to do it fine without lagging. It seems to be able to take everything I throw at it. My windows boot time is quick; I’d say barely a minute or so. This fast boot time is enabled by the 7200RPM HD which is one of the fastest 7200rpm drives out there. The 2GB of ram has allowed me to run just about anything and everything at the same time without any lag. It seems to do everything I want it to do extremely fast. It’s exactly what I was looking for.

Heat is an issue if you’re used to a cool running machine, such as a ThinkPad which generally stays pretty cool. The z96j on the other hand keeps your palms and wrist warm on those cold winter nights. The area under the left palm rest houses the hard drive so it warms up a little and the area under the right wrist pad is where the processor and GPU are located. While these areas both get warm, it isn’t too uncomfortable to use, you’ll get used to it and forget about it after 5 minutes. It’s not something that should deter you from purchasing this laptop.

The keyboard is more solid than the Dell I used to own, but not as stiff as a ThinkPad keyboard. Although no one makes a keyboard like a ThinkPad, so that’s an unfair comparison. The Z96j buttons have just the right amount of give for a laptop. No complaints here, it works well thanks to the roomy 15.4″ frame. The touchpad works well; it’s not flushed with the wrist pads like some of the other Asus models. On the top right, there are also buttons that allow easy access to your e-mail, browser and to disable the touchpad.