Dell Latitude 15.6" Dual-Core i5 Laptop

**Item: **Dell Latitude 15.6" Dual-Core i5 Laptop
Price: $599.99
Shipping Options: $5 Standard
Condition: Refurbished

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Previous Similar Sales (May not be exact model)
2/26/2013 - $700.00 (Woot Plus)

Lot’s of additional info over at dell.com

Thorough review over at notebookcheck.net

REview and feedback at HotHardware

These are really good, business class laptops…but the low resolution (1366x768) just kills it.

For me, the PROS are:

CONS:

  • Dual Core
    (Does anyone know if I will notice difference between Quad/Dual cores when running VirtualBox or VMWare?)

  • Win7 32-bit? Why not 64-bit?

If I end up buying this laptop I would purchase a hard drive caddy (~$50) and gladly lose the optical drive:

http://www.newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_3&products_id=489

and install a secondary hard drive. More specifically, I would install a SSD to be used as my OS drive and use the HDD as the data (Program Files) drive.

I’m trying to imagine how fast this laptop would boot into an SSD + 16Gb RAM. Too bad the Dual Core i5 is keeping me on the fence.

Can anyone tell me more about this Dual Core i5? I plan on running VirutalBox/VMWare to test software, nothing hardware intensive on the VMs. On the host OS (SSD), I may play some Starcraft 2 or Team Fortress 2.

Also, it looks like you can hackintosh this laptop.
http://www.osxlatitude.com/edp/compatibility/

Thanks in advice for your insight.

At first I figured you’d discuss something other then VMWare/VirtualBox as it really wouldn’t be that noticeable for a ton of other things, but yes, dual/quad are major differences in performance for Virtual Software.

A proper quad-core would be better for working with VMs, but this is ‘effectively’ a quad-core.

It’s a Dual-Core with hyperthreading; so each core runs 2 threads. Not as fast as a proper quad-core but an important distinction.

I picked up the i3 latitude that was offered a while back and as a bang-around workhorse it’s been perfect. I just needed an enterprise quality laptop to do work from occasionally or to have for proper web browsing when on vacation and it works wonderfully.

And this model is a better version of what I bought in nearly every way besides RAM (the i3 had 4 gigs as well) and hard drive (the i3 came with a Samsung 830 SSD).

Note to people who don’t know the difference between a Latitude and the Inspiron/other Dell models: This is enterprise quality gear.

It’s:
-much higher build quality
-engineered for durability/long term use
-designed for business/work use rather than gaming.

Also it should support a KVM Docking station; so if you want to use it like a desktop feel free.

Also, parts (batteries, namely) and how-to guides for repair will be A LOT EASIER to find for a much longer period of time. If a company with a premier account bought one of these a year or two back it’s still under warranty; so that should tell you that if you get one of these you can expect 2-3 years of being able to easily find replacement parts and batteries.

This is really pretty close to being a good deal on a nice laptop… but yeah, why all the crappy resolution laptops, Woot? Even 1600x900 would be tons better, but seems rare here.

And then there’s the lameness of 32-bit Windows 7, adding an extra step to your inevitable RAM upgrade (sooner or later).

This is something big to keep in mind. The key is that this probably won’t have you up and playing the newest games with the best graphics, but if you are looking for something for a home office or work use, this will do that job pretty well and keep it up for several years if you take care of it. I have used them before, and while they are nothing sexy, they are pretty reliable. One issue that we had with them, and this was mostly a user thing, was that if you have more than two users logged on and switching between accounts it starts to tank the performance. My last gripe would be that I was not a fan of the resolution, but a cheep monitor solved that pretty quick.

I, too, picked up the SSD Inspiron a while back when it was up, and have been extremely happy with it. It is a tank in terms of durability, the battery lasts for 5+ hours, the speed is blindingly fast, and the keyboard and touchpad feel very high quality.

I also agree with the above that this is clearly a business-oriented machine, not for gaming. It is not about fancy display and graphics, but about fast computing. That said, it does have an HDMI output; I put mine in dual monitor mode and plug the HDMI into my 70" TV and play movies or Netflix while I continue to work/surf on the laptop itself. It is the ultimate multitasker in that way, and keeps me happily and simultaneously productive/unproductive.

The only issue I had was a bad backlight component in the display, which showed up a month in. The gold level service package that this came with really is a step above regular Dell customer service. They took the thing back, fixed it, and had it back to me in 4 days, all without any cost to me. Very professional and responsive.

I would and will buy Dell enterprise level hardware again.

A “REFURBISHED” piece of trash is still trash.

Dell’s quality has gone to the landfill. The customer support and technical support are the worst of any industry. Within the first hour of having a person read a script of how to help a customer but knows no other English, you soon learn. The former glory days of Dell being a superb product and company are LONG GONE!

i have a work-issued E6430, which is the same basic laptop but with a 14" screen. however, mine has the 1600x900 high(er) resolution screen . having seen the crappy 13x7 on other company 12" laptops, i opted for the larger, higher rez screen. i can’t imagine how blocky everything would look at 13x7 on a 15" screen.

as for the rest of the laptop - mine has 8gb ram, 128gb ssd, and win7 enterprise 64bit (remember, it’s a work-issued machine). from the time the bios finishes all its self tests till the time i see the windows ctrl-alt-del screen is usually about 8-10 seconds. the corei5 and 8gb handles vmware workstation (with 2 win7 x64 VMs running at the same time) OK. i wouldn’t try running more than 2 VMs though.

my favorite features are the full size hdmi port (no need for adapters from mini-hdmi like previous models), vga port for projectors, SD card slot, and the screen. but i’d never buy the one woot is offering right now - that screen is not just a dealbreaker, it’s fricken pathetic. i think my cell phone has higher resolution than that. and that’s SAD.

to me, 13x7 is NETBOOK resolution. i suppose if all you’re doing is surfing facebook and watching youtube, it’s fine, but then the rest of the laptop is a waste. it’s like buying a BMW M3 and then just driving to church on sundays at 20 mph, when a nicely equipped camry would do the same for a lot less $.

that may be true of their inspiron (consumer) line, but this is a latitude. i still own a latitude C610 and other than diminished battery life (hey, it’s 11 years old!) it still works perfectly. and it survived a drop off the roof of my car onto the street - WITHOUT a case. yes, it cracked the corner of the palmrest but everything still works. these E series machines seem to be built even more solid than the old C and D series, so i would expect these to last a while too.

i don’t care for the rubberized finish on the E series palmrest, but that’s minor.

Not really that great of a deal. I picked up the same machine w/8GB, 500GB HD, 1920x1080, and the 9 cell battery for ~$50 less from Dell Outlet a couple of months ago.

Plus, it came with the 3 year warranty, instead of the 1 year.

Watch for the 20-30% off coupons and you can get a better deal direct.