Latitude E5420 for €540, a good deal?

partyatmygaff

After much searching for a laptop for college i've found and ordered a Dell Latitude E5420 for £460 (€537ish euro).

Spec:
i5-2520M
6GB RAM
HD3000 (:()
250GB 7200RPM HDD
9 Cell (97WH) battery
1600x900 14.0" display

Is a Latitude E5420 with that spec a good deal at €540 or can I do better? I've ordered the laptop from Dell's UK site already but used my Irish debit card by mistake so have to ring them up tomorrow to correct my payment details. As such, I still have a chance to change my mind but tbh i'm almost getting fed up of searching for laptops, it's been two months at this stage =/

Tinie

If you order on the dell uk site, do they deliver it to irish addresses? can you use an irish credit card also on the uk site?

partyatmygaff

Tinie wrote: »

If you order on the dell uk site, do they deliver it to irish addresses? can you use an irish credit card also on the uk site?

No i'm having it delivered to a UK address. It looks like they don't accept Irish credit cards either as I still haven't gotten an order confirmation almost five hours after ordering. I'll need to call tomorrow and use a UK card instead I think.

Jaafa

Whats your max budget? I take it you were wanting something with a better graphics card?

Tinie

I was able to haggle with dell over the phone and get an inspiron 15r with i5 2430m, 4gb ram, 720gb HD, 1 GB nVidia GeForce GT 525M for €550 delivered. Might be of interest to you.

Jaafa

Dell XPS 15 L502x, i5, 4GB ram, 640GB HDD (7,200RPM), GT525m (decent bit of gaming can be done on this) and some awesome built in speakers.

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&oc=N00X5M19&dgc=AF&cid=5212&lid=122756&acd=de6909567026b25fc640d5dcbf9d9cd5

Add code: 9PM1010630WZFT for 15% off. Total cost: 625 euro.

partyatmygaff

Jaafa wrote: »

Whats your max budget? I take it you were wanting something with a better graphics card?

Yes... but I wouldn't want to sacrifice battery life or screen pixel density either. In order of importance my criteria for searching for a laptop is

Build quality
Battery life (No real need for anything longer than 5/6 hours but anything less than 3 isn't good enough)
Screen resolution relative to screen size (1366x768 would be grand on <14" but not on 15.6")
CPU (Sandybridge i5 but i3 if the price is significantly less. As for AMD, significantly cheaper than an i5 and nothing below an A8-3500M for somewhat decent CPU performance)
GPU (I could live with an iGPU but dedicated would of course be preferable)


Dell cancelled the order today for failed payment authorisation around 3PM today. All of that despite them confirming over the phone that the order was "completed" and i'd get an order confirmation later today. Now I have to wait until Monday (Or whenever someone who works in the Outlet store bothers to call back) to reorder the same laptop.

Jaafa

Well how do the does the above XPS suit you?

1366x768 is fine on a 15inch trust me I have one. I mean you've compared the higher res ones to it and think you'd prefer more then fair enough.

I think battery life is right around 6 hours with light usage.

Build quality as you may know is top notch on a XPS.

Then you have the CPU which is slightly worse than the one you posted but you wont be able to tell the difference. It really is negligible.

And of course the GPU is much better, can run BF3 and Skyrim etc.

Weight is about 2.9kg which I don't mind personally, I carry around a similar sized laptop in my backpack in college.

partyatmygaff

I know 1366x768 isn't absolutely horrible or anything but it's not great either. The way I see it... it's almost €100 more for less battery life, marginally less CPU power, less resolution and less a backlit keyboard. That's a lot to sacrifice for just a GT525M tbh.

Tinie

Jaafa wrote: »

Dell XPS 15 L502x, i5, 4GB ram, 640GB HDD (7,200RPM), GT525m (decent bit of gaming can be done on this) and some awesome built in speakers.

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&oc=N00X5M19&dgc=AF&cid=5212&lid=122756&acd=de6909567026b25fc640d5dcbf9d9cd5

Add code: 9PM1010630WZFT for 15% off. Total cost: 625 euro.

Showing 625 pounds for me man?? Forgot Partyatmygaff is in the UK, my mistake, so im guessing my config below can be got about £525-550?

Anyway, I did a quick look, and got a quote of €598 for this XPS 15:

i5 2430m
500gb HD (7200 rpm)
4gb RAM
15.6"(40 cm) HD WLED TL (1366x768) 720p with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 525M Graphics Card


Looks like a good deal to me!

Are the covers of XPS's aluminium like on a macbook or just plastic?

Tinie

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I know 1366x768 isn't absolutely horrible or anything but it's not great either. The way I see it... it's almost €100 more for less battery life, marginally less CPU power, less resolution and less a backlit keyboard. That's a lot to sacrifice for just a GT525M tbh.

Dont all the XPS 15s have backlit keyboards or is it only certain ones?

Jaafa

Tinie wrote: »

Showing 625 pounds for me man??

Anyway, I did a quick look, and got a quote of €598 for this XPS 15:

i5 2430m
500gb HD (7200 rpm)
4gb RAM
15.6"(40 cm) HD WLED TL (1366x768) 720p with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 525M Graphics Card


Looks like a good deal to me!

Are the covers of XPS's aluminium like on a macbook or just plastic?

Yeah once you add the code the price goes down. Not sure about the cover, I'd say plastic but I dont know

@Party, Ok I'm just giving you some options, if you really don't need a GPU that badly then you probably wont find a better offer than the one you have.The way I'd see it (because I'm a gamer) is that +100 and you have a gaming platform. Can I ask how you got that price on it?

Jaafa

Tinie wrote: »

Dont all the XPS 15s have backlit keyboards or is it only certain ones?

Only certain ones. +30 euro I think for em.

partyatmygaff

Jaafa wrote: »

Yeah once you add the code the price goes down.

@Party, Ok I'm just giving you some options, if you really don't need a GPU that badly then you probably wont find a better offer than the one you have. Can I ask how you got that price on it?

Dell Outlet. It's almost twice as expensive on the normal Dell site.

Personally i'd prefer an XPS 15 to the E5420 but my main issue is with the screen. Battery life and build quality I can live with but the screen resolution is putting me off.

Tinie

Jaafa wrote: »

Yeah once you add the code the price goes down. Not sure about the cover, I'd say plastic but I dont know

Ah right, I just saw this: Metalloid Aluminum Cover

Maybe they mean its the colour of Metalloid Aluminum.

Jaafa

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Dell Outlet. It's almost twice as expensive on the normal Dell site.

Personally i'd prefer an XPS 15 to the E5420 but my main issue is with the screen. Battery life and build quality I can live with but the screen resolution is putting me off.

If you won't be gaming much, and you aren't used to a higher res screen then you absolutely won't notice it.

partyatmygaff

Another e5420 popped up on the Outlet site and I bought it with the UK card this time.

Completely different experience. The account has been debited already and it's showing up as order processing in the Order Status section. The earlier order has finally shown up in the Order status section as being cancelled.

I'm actually glad that the first order didn't go through. This is a much better deal than the first one.

I paid £5 more for these changes...

Downgrades:
4GB instead of 6GB RAM (Not an issue really. I could even upgrade to 8GB fairly cheaply if I ever have the need)
No webcam

Upgrades:
ExpressCard instead of PCMIA - eGPU anyone? Much better than an antiquated and nigh-on useless PCMIA slot.
A better WiFi card (2x2 instead of 1x1)
Bluetooth
3 Years NBD warranty


Happy out. Here's hoping that things go smoothly with the order.

Tinie

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Another e5420 popped up on the Outlet site and I bought it with the UK card this time.

Completely different experience. The account has been debited already and it's showing up as order processing in the Order Status section. The earlier order has finally shown up in the Order status section as being cancelled.

I'm actually glad that the first order didn't go through. This is a much better deal than the first one.

I paid £5 more for these changes...

Downgrades:
4GB instead of 6GB RAM (Not an issue really. I could even upgrade to 8GB fairly cheaply if I ever have the need)
No webcam

Upgrades:
ExpressCard instead of PCMIA - eGPU anyone? Much better than an antiquated and nigh-on useless PCMIA slot.
A better WiFi card (2x2 instead of 1x1)
Bluetooth
3 Years NBD warranty


Happy out. Here's hoping that things go smoothly with the order.

Where did you find that latitude on the UK outlet? Was there just one as I cant seem to find any good deals on it. Were just checking every few minutes for one and bought it as soon as it came up or was there a few of them on the site?

All I can see are lots of Inspirons, XPS's and Studios.

partyatmygaff

Tinie wrote: »

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Another e5420 popped up on the Outlet site and I bought it with the UK card this time.

Completely different experience. The account has been debited already and it's showing up as order processing in the Order Status section. The earlier order has finally shown up in the Order status section as being cancelled.

I'm actually glad that the first order didn't go through. This is a much better deal than the first one.

I paid £5 more for these changes...

Downgrades:
4GB instead of 6GB RAM (Not an issue really. I could even upgrade to 8GB fairly cheaply if I ever have the need)
No webcam

Upgrades:
ExpressCard instead of PCMIA - eGPU anyone? Much better than an antiquated and nigh-on useless PCMIA slot.
A better WiFi card (2x2 instead of 1x1)
Bluetooth
3 Years NBD warranty


Happy out. Here's hoping that things go smoothly with the order.

Where did you find that latitude on the UK outlet? Was there just one as I cant seem to find any good deals on it. Were just checking every few minutes for one and bought it as soon as it came up or was there a few of them on the site?

All I can see are lots of Inspirons, XPS's and Studios.

Go to http://dell.co.UK/outlet and choose business laptops.

Jaafa

3 years warranty seems to be the biggest benefit there. Good buy OP.

partyatmygaff

Got an order confirmation with the service tag today... There are a few interesting entries when I use Dell's warranty check.

1 LATITUDE E5420 : STANDARD BASE
1 BASE OPTION : EXPRESS CARD
1 PROCESSOR : ONE INTEL CORE I5-2520M (2.5
1 DISPLAY : 35.6CM (14.0IN) ULTRASHARP HD+
1 PALMREST : FINGERPRINT READER DUAL POINT
1 CAMERA : NO INTEGRATED FULL HD CAMERA WI
1 LCD BACK COVER : BACK COVER
1 DOKUMENTATION : ENGLISCH, DANISCH, NIEDE
1 MEMORY : 4GB (2X2GB) 1333MHZ DDR3 DUAL C
1 FESTPLATTE: 250GB SERIAL ATA II (7.200 1
1 WINDOWS LIVE
1 OPTICAL SOFTWARE : POWERDVD SOFTWARE FOR
1 OPTICAL DRIVE : DVD +/-RW DRIVE
1 OPTICAL SOFTWARE : ROXIO STARTER SOFTWAR
1 POWER SUPPLY + POWER CORD : EUROPEAN 90W
1 BATTERY : PRIMARY 9-CELL 87W/HR, 3 YEAR
1 PORT REPLICATOR : EURO1 SIMPLE E-PORT WI
1 CARRY CASE : NYLON BLACK CARRYING CASE F
1 LABELS : INTEL CORE LABEL I52
1 MODEM : NOT INCLUDED
1 WIRELESS CARD : EMEA INTEL CENTRINO ADVA
1 WIRELESS : DELL 375 BLUETOOTH CARD
1 DELL USB DUAL TONE MOUSE - GREY - 2 BUTT
1 KEYBOARD : INTERNAL GERMAN QWERTZ BACKLI
1 SOFTWARE DRIVER : LATITUDE E5420 DIAGNOS
1 OPERATING SYSTEM : GERMAN GENUINE WINDOW
1 OS MEDIA: MUI WINDOWS 7 SP1 PROFESSIONAL
1 LATITUDE ORDER - AUSTRIA
1 BASE WARRANTY
1 1YR COLLECT AND RETURN
1 INFO 1YR PROSUPPORT FOR YOUR ENTERPRISE
1 39 MONTHS PROSUPPORT FOR YOUR ENTERPRISE
1 DECLINED ACCIDENTAL DAMAGE OFFER
1 NOTEBOOK - FREE FREIGHT SKU

So apparently there's a port replicator, mouse, warrantied battery and carry case included in the order. Sounds fine.

The one thing I'm not sure about is the German keyboard. Do you think Dell will change it to a QWERTY keyboard prior to shipping it out?

Jaafa

I doubt it, but its no big deal really, I have one and the only difference is the y and z keys are swapped around and some of the symbols are in different places.

partyatmygaff

Liveable with I suppose. I could always swap around Y and Z on the keyboard and do a key remap in Windows.

partyatmygaff

Shipped and I got a phone call from Dell to let me know the keyboard has been changed to a QWERTY keyboard. Happy enough so far.

Alanstrainor

Best of luck with it man. Let us know your first impressions when you get it!

partyatmygaff

Will do. I may post a mini unboxing/review post when I get it seeing as I couldn't find one anywhere else.

I would have opted for the E6420 (For the Orange keyboard surround more than anything ) but unfortunately they had none in stock with the 900p screen.

partyatmygaff

Well it looks as if their 1/12 estimated delivery date was a bit optimistic...

I rang DPD today and so far the parcel hasn't even reached Ireland yet. They don't actually know where it is or where it's coming from. All they know is that it hasn't arrived in the country yet.

On a slightly more positive note... after umpteen calls to Dell I think I may have managed to get them to change the delivery address from my family up North to here in Dublin. They said they forwarded the new address to DPD and they'll call me tomorrow to confirm the address change. Here's hoping things go as planned.

partyatmygaff

The laptop arrived yesterday

I'm extremely pleased. As far as i'm concerned, it's brand new. No scratches, marks or blemishes anywhere throughout the laptop. Although Dell didn't install any bloat on the laptop I still had to reinstall Windows due to their strange decision to use Windows 7 x86 instead of x64. Not that annoying but nonetheless it's something I could have done without.

The materials used throughout are high quality and feel great (Soft matt plastic on the palm rests, powder-coated magnesium underbody and screen bezel and brushed aluminium on the screen lid. Everything feels "right" when you handle the laptop. The hinge is strong, the body doesn't flex and best of all there's no tacky glossy plastic coating the laptop. The only complaint I really have is that the lid picks up fingerprints far too easily. The palmrest is fingerprint-resistant though.

Now on to the laptop from a usability point of view. The keyboard is excellent. Subjectively i'd have to say it's one of the best laptop keyboards i've ever used. For a common reference, it matches the feel of a Thinkpad keyboard. There's a lot of travel and the key surface is top notch but Dell made one glaring omission (More on this at the end). The touchpad is fine. It's smooth, responsive and the buttons are soft yet make a reassuring "click" sound. The screen too is absolutely brilliant. 1600x900 on a 14" screen makes for very high pixel density and plenty of screen space. The colours are a tad cold though. Turning up the colour saturation and lowering the blue level helped to warm the colours up a bit. The anti-glare coating on the screen is great for using the laptop in direct sunlight. I could still see the screen perfectly well even at half brightness on the train today.

As for the battery life, a picture speaks many words In practice, I should get around 9 hours with Wireless off, Brightness 3/6 running office applications based on the measurements I took yesterday of ~9% drop in battery life per hour.

I'm also fairly pleased with the performance. The HDD is a tiny bit too small and too slow for my liking and I'll be upgrading it as soon as HDD prices go back to normal. That said, the i5-2520M/HD3000 is fairly powerful and churns right through anything I throw at it from molecular modelling to music production to gaming...

Speaking of gaming The HD3000 is far better than i'd ever imagined. It runs CSS at a steady 60FPS on all high (Except for AA/AF) at native resolution. Amazingly, BF2 also runs very well. I'll be trying out Bad Company 2 later in the week.

Now as for the "glaring omission" I mentioned earlier. Dell managed to somehow ship me the laptop with a Fingerprint reader Trackstick/Touchpad palmrest and a keyboard lacking a trackstick. Normally I wouldn't care as I find tracksticks pointless but those three vestigial mouse buttons over the the touchpad just look odd without a trackstick in the keyboard. I've rang Dell and they said they'll look in to finding a solution for me. Hopefully they'll just send me out a new keyboard for me to do the swap myself. It'd be a right pain if they decided to send one of their technicians out to do the swap instead.

However overall, I'm incredibly impressed. It's nothing at all like a laptop from Dell's consumer range. My Inspiron 1545 feels and looks like a cheap, glossy plastic toy when put next to the E5420.

nanook5

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005TPRVZ8/ref=s9_simh_gw_p147_d1_g147_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1MBYFJMXBR382A1T3ZDJ&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467128533&pf_rd_i=468294 pretty decent

Jaafa

Yep on the whole gaming thing, my laptop has an 1st gen i3 and I too was surprised at the number of games it could run. Shogun 2, company of heros, Portal etc.

But Don't expect to run BFBC2 even on your HD3000. Maybe on the very lowest settings but don't except much.

Also word is that the next gen processors with the HD4000 in them is a vast improvement, far more than going from 1st gen to 2nd gen.