Review Lenovo G450

The Lenovo G450 is a 14-inch screen laptop designed for buyers that are on a budget but still want a laptop that is of decent quality and portable enough to take places outside of the home or office. The Lenovo G450 could be a good laptop for students as they certainly have to be cost conscious and portability is necessary to be able to easily carry a laptop in your backpack. I recently found the G450 for a great price so decided to pick it up and try it out for some of the school work I do.

Configuration and Performance

The Lenovo IdeaPad G450 model I purchased came with the following configuration:

• Processor: Intel T4300 2.10GHz processor, 800MHz system bus, 1MB l2 cache
• Screen: 14-inch, 16:9 format LED backlit (1366 x 768 resolution)
• Memory: 3GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Hard Drive: 250GB (5400RPM)
• Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
• Wireless: Broadcom 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi
• Optical Drive: DVD Recordable (dual layer)
• Webcam: 0.3-Megapixel
• Ports: ExpressCard/34 slot, Three USB 2.0 ports, monitor-out port, Ethernet port, headphone out and microphone in
• Weight: 4.9lbs

The Intel Pentium T4300 dual core processor that comes with the IdeaPad G450 clocks in at 2.10GHz, although it’s not branded as a more fancy Core 2 Duo processor, the Pentium T4300 actually performs well and if you look at a chart from the benchmarking site CPUBenchmark.net you’ll see it actually performs ahead of some older Core 2 Duo processors:

So you have no need to worry about the G450 being underpowered if you get the Pentium T4300 processor. In fact, I recommend this processor because it is a lot cheaper than the G450 with the Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 2.40GHz processor.

The Lenovo G450 configuration I have comes with 3GB of RAM, which is ample to run Windows 7. The hard drive storage is 250GB and the spin speed is 5400RPM, which is a standard rotation speed for a budget laptop hard drive. The graphics are taken care of by an Intel integrated X4500, this won’t allow you to do any high-end gaming but for most people running productivity applications on their laptop (email, web, Microsoft Word) this will be more than enough.

Overall I found the performance of the Lenovo G450 to be really quite good, especially for a budget laptop that has a low price of around $500. There is never any slow down when using the computer, though the most I demanding thing I did was watching HD video on sites like YouTube and Hulu.com, the processor had no problems keeping up with the demanding flash decoding that has to be done for HD video.

For those interested in benchmark results, here’s a comparison to the Dell Inspiron 14 and Dell Studio 14z competing 14-inch laptops and then the benchmark results screenshots for the Lenovo G450 are pasted below that:

	Lenovo G450 (Intel Pentium Dual Core 2.1GHz, 3GB, Intel Graphics)	Dell Inspiron 14 (Intel Pentium Dual Core 2.0GHz, 3GB RAM, Intel graphics)	Dell Studio 14z (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz, 3GB RAM, Nvidia 9400 graphics)
PCMark Vantage	3,243	2,437	3,520
3DMark 06	783	751	2,081
Windows Experience Index	3.3	3.2	4.8

PCMark Vantage	PC Wizard Benchmark results
3DMark06	Windows Experience Index

Lenovo G450 Design and Build Quality

The Lenovo G450 doesn’t exactly provide an eye catching design, it’s a little bland to be honest. The lid is gray in color and has what Lenovo calls a “hairline finish”. Basically it looks like a brush metal finish but quite obviously the lid is made of plastic and not metal. The lid is also glossy and as you will see in the picture below this means that it reflects a fair amount of light and will pick up fingerprints:

Inside the laptop the finish is the same as the lid, a gray hairline finish but with a black screen:

The keyboard is black. One nice design finish is that the white indicator lights have a pleasing look. At the top of the keyboard the volume control buttons are touch sensitive and when you press them the buttons glow to indicate they have registered a touch:

The indicator lights below the touchpad indicate from left to right in the above picture that power is on, battery is charging, wireless is on and then finally hard drive activity.

The build quality of the Lenovo G450 is surprisingly good, though the case is made entirely of plastic it is quite rigid and you won’t find much flex to the body. There is some flex in the palm rests, but not enough to notice while you type. The weakest point of the laptop seems to be on the bottom underneath the optical drive, I can push in quite a bit there, due to the fact the optical drive is mostly hollow space this is not an unusual thing. Overall I would give the build quality of the Lenovo G450 a B-, it’s not the best but it is a bit better than I would expect for a budget laptop that cost me under $500.

Lenovo G450 Screen

The screen for the G450 is nice and bright, Lenovo rates it at 220-nits, which is good. The display has a glossy finish, meaning the colors are bright and vibrant, but you do get some reflection from the display because of the glossy overlay. For an example of the reflection you get on the screen from bright windows/lights in the room check out the image below:

The display is very wide, having a 16:9 ratio and 1366 x 768 resolution, this is good for watching movies in widescreen format but it’s a pain if you have very tall web pages as it involves a lot of scrolling. You can fit a lot of stuff on the screen horizontally, but not vertically. I can’t complain too much about this though, most every notebook made these days has this same 16:9 widescreen format, there’s no getting away from it.

The screen actually has pretty good viewing angles for a laptop, so overall I’d say this screen is slightly above average and most people will think it’s just great.

Lenovo G450 Port Selection

The port selection on the Lenovo G450 is fairly limited, it comes with 3 USB ports, an ExpressCard 34mm expansion slot, one monitor out port, an Ethernet port, headphone and microphone port. I miss having a media card reader built-in, as that makes it easy to transfer images from a camera via SD card, but you could buy an accessory to put in the ExpressCard that acts as a media card reader. The G450 probably has enough ports for most people, but I know some people won’t buy a computer without an HDMI port for high-definition video output, but you can’t expect that in a budget laptop. Below are pictures of each side of the laptop and a description of the ports you will find there:

Front side: headphone and microphone port

Left side: Ethernet, Monitor out, two USB ports and an ExpressCard 34mm expansion slot

Right side: USB port, optical drive, power jack

Back side: Just the battery

Lenovo G450 Battery Life

The advertised battery life for the Lenovo G450 is 5 hours. You could probably get that amount of battery life setting screen to the lowest setting and turning off wireless, but that’s not how most people use a laptop. For a realistic test I charged the battery to 100%, then pulled the plug and put the screen brightness at half and left a web page open that refreshed every two minutes. Doing this, the computer shut down with 5% battery life remaining after 3 hours and 55 minutes. You can assume you can get about 4 hours of battery life using the G450 under normal conditions, if you’re doing a lot of tasks it might be closer to 3.5 hours.

Lenovo G450 Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard for the Lenovo G450 is comfortable for typing, the keys are actually very “desktop like’, they’re chunky and are protrude up more than an average laptop keyboard with flatter keys. The keys also have a matte finish, they’re not glossy and slippery like some consumer notebooks. The keyboard is solid with no flex, there’s nothing worse than a mushy springy keyboard.

There are some useful buttons above the keyboard worth mentioning. The touch sensitive volume up, down and mute buttons on the top right are nice and responsive. In addition, the power button on the top left side has a backup system button next to it that makes it very simple to launch an application that allows you to backup or restore the G450 to a previous state.

I’m not a huge fan of the touchpad, it uses a glossy surface that I find is hard to glide my finger across and it just doesn’t feel very responsive, there is sometimes lag. Using the scrolling areas of the touchpad also proved challenging, sometimes working and sometimes not. I’d recommend plugging in a wireless mouse if you’re at a desk or table, otherwise you’ll just have to get used to using the touchpad and it’s quirks.

Lenovo G450 Speakers

The speakers for the G450 aren’t much to write home about, they’re loud enough but tinny sounding like many budget laptop speakers end up being. They’re actually positioned on the screen, right at the bottom where the hinge area is. I don’t know how Lenovo crammed them in there, but needless to say since there isn’t much space there’s no way you’re getting any bass from these speakers. The speakers are fine fine for system sounds and spoken audio, but I recommend using headphones for any music.

Lenovo G450 Web Cam

Worth mentioning is the fact that G450 comes with a 0.3 megapixel web camera. While that is low resolution, it worked pretty well in low light situations and Lenovo provided some nice software for using the web cam so that’s easy to do. Also included is facial recognition software so you can setup Windows to log you in when it recognizes your face instead of having to type a password, pretty cool!

Conclusion

Overall the Lenovo G450 is a good laptop for the price. When spending a limited amount on a laptop you know there will be certain sacrifices such as not having all the ports you might like and a design that isn’t exactly stunning. I like the fact the G450 has a solid feel to it and seems it will last some of the bumps and bruises that come with getting carried around in a backpack. The performance from the Intel T4300 processor and 3GB of RAM was just fine for my needs, the system never experienced slowness when using productivity applications or even during multimedia use. I recommend the G450 to those on a budget, if you can spend $200 more you can find more appealing laptops, but for the price of the G450 you can’t go wrong.

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Review ASUS K40IN

ASUS' K-series notebooks promise a blend of value and performance. The K40IN is a 14-inch notebook with Nvidia graphics and an $800 price tag. How did it hold up in our testing?

Our ASUS K40IN-B1 review unit has the following specifications:

• 14-inch 720p (1366x768) display with LED backlighting
• Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit
• Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 (2.1GHz/2MB L2/800MHz FSB)
• Nvidia GeForce G102M integrated graphics card w/ 512MB DDR2 memory
• 4GB DDR2-667 RAM
• 320GB 5400RPM hard drive (Seagate Momentus 5400.6/ST9320325AS)
• 802.11n wireless (Atheros AR9285)
• DVD Super Multi drive
• Two-year warranty w/ one year accidental coverage
• 6-cell Li-ion battery (11.1v, 4400mAh, 46Wh)
• Weight: 5.3 lbs
• Dimensions: 13.4” x 9.5” x 1.4-1.5”
• MSRP: $799.99

Build and Design
The K40IN has a traditional notebook design and shape; it looks like an ordinary notebook and is visually uninspiring. Corners are rounded off to give the notebook a soft look. Nearly all surfaces of the K40IN save for the keyboard are glossy plastic, which is a dual-edged blade. On one hand the glossiness makes the notebook look more attractive, but on the other hand it reduces durability and makes it a real chore to keep clean.

The physical build quality of the K40IN is satisfactory. The quality is consistent; no particular area seems to be stronger or weaker than another. The base of the notebook resists twisting well and the palm rests barely flex under pressure. This lid is one of the better-reinforced lids I have seen on a value-oriented notebook; it is resistant to flexing and pushing in on the back of the lid does not yield any ripples on the screen. The hinges anchoring it to the base of the notebook are strong and display wobble is minimal.

Overall the build quality meets expectations; it is not outstanding and matches up to the competition at the very least. The design is rather plain though not unattractive. However, the glossy plastic will be a turn-off for some.

Screen and Speakers
The K40IN has a 14-inch diagonal display with LED backlighting and a 16:9 aspect ratio. The overall quality of the display is 'very good'. Brightness is excellent and contrast is reasonable. Pictures and movies are a pleasure to view on this display. The viewing angles are above average; side-to-side are nearly flawless, and while the colors wash out and darken from above and below respectively, the picture is fine for about thirty degrees vertically off center. The backlighting is not even with a significant amount of bleed at the bottom; fortunately it is not noticeable during normal use.

The display's 1366x768 resolution is a standard resolution for mainstream notebooks. The horizontal resolution is adequate, however only 768 pixels of vertical space means a good deal of scrolling while surfing the Internet and only enough space to view about one-half of a page in a Microsoft Word.

The K40IN has Altec Lansing speakers located underneath the palm rest. Simply put, the K40IN has two of the worst speakers I have heard on a notebook; my ears cringe every time a sound gets played. The speakers are muddy, tinny, and too quiet. Using the included SRS WOW software enhancer distorts the sound and put this odd pressure on my eardrums that I cannot stand. The headphone jack is fortunately static-free and the best way to get audio signals out of the notebook.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The K40IN's full-size keyboard is responsive and pleasing to use. The keys are large and flat and have a matte texture, which may wear over time. There is no noticeable flex unless a lot of pressure is used. A nice aspect of this keyboard is its quietness; it does not click or clack. It is also good to see the keyboard has a standard layout; all keys are more or less in their expected places.

The touchpad is a mixed bag. The glossy surface can be difficult to track on with moist fingers and the touchpad buttons are loud. Another complaint is the lack of a dedicated scroll zone.

The status lights on the K40 consist of three tiny circles below the touchpad buttons. From a functionality standpoint, they should be larger and brighter for better visibility.

Ports and Features
The K40IN suffers from a lack of ports relative to its competitors. HDMI is noticeably absent; the notebook's only video out option is VGA. Furthermore, there is no ExpressCard or PC Card slot for wireless broadband cards and other add-on devices. All picture descriptions are left to right.

Left side: DVD drive, 2x USB

Right side: headphone and microphone jacks, 2x USB, VGA out, 1000Mbps Ethernet, power jack

Front: Speakers, media card reader (SD/MMC/MS)

Back: Kensington Lock slots, exhaust vent

Performance and Benchmarks
The K40IN is a good performer thanks to its Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of RAM, and speedy 320GB hard drive. This machine is more than capable of handling everyday tasks and even more intensive applications like Adobe Photoshop.

Wprime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

3DMark06 measures overall graphics performance for gaming (higher scores mean better performance):

HDTune storage drive performance test:

Graphics performance from the integrated Nvidia G102M will only suffice for older games; newer games are out of its league. Despite having 512MB of its own memory the G102M simply lacks the processing power necessary to play modern games. I question ASUS' decision to use Nvidia graphics in this notebook versus Intel integrated graphics, which have lower power consumption. The extra power consumption of the Nvidia graphics versus Intel graphics is not justified since this machine cannot play modern games and its HD video acceleration capabilities will go unused since the K40IN lacks a Blu-ray drive.

Something to note about the Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 processor is its lack of VT (Virtualization Technology). This means that the K40IN will be unable to utilize the virtual Windows XP mode in Windows 7. For most users this should not be an issue.

Heat and Noise
The K40IN excelled in managing heat and noise. Even under stress the surface of the notebook never got warm and the palmrests remained completely cool – there is even a sticker on the palm rest showing this off stating "Feel the cool comfort – 25% cooler than body temperature." The bottom of the notebook also remained cool, only getting warm in a few areas.

The heat exhaust fan is located in the center of the back of the notebook. This is a convenient location since it keeps heat as far away from the user as possible. The fan is nearly silent even when under load, and is barely audible at idle in a silent room. Well done, ASUS.

Battery Life
In power saving mode with 25% screen brightness, the K40IN lasted for four hours, thirty-five minutes while surfing the Internet and using a word processor. This is a good number for a notebook that packs a six-cell battery, standard voltage processor, and Nvidia integrated graphics. If ASUS had used Intel integrated graphics instead of Nvidia, the battery life would likely have been a bit longer.

Operating System and Software
The K40IN comes with Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit and a ton of pre-loaded utilities. There are at least ten utilities installed – managers for this, monitors for that, and so on. Many of them are startup items which increase log-on time. If ASUS could consolidate all of them into a central control panel then this would not be such an issue. The sheer number of them at present is unnecessary.

Conclusion
The K40IN has good build quality, a pleasing keyboard and screen, and gets over four and a half hours of battery life. Unfortunately the K40IN's value proposition is questionable. It lacks an HDMI port and is priced $100-$150 more than competitors with the same specifications minus the Nvidia graphics. The Nvidia graphics are a puzzling choice for the K40IN; they are not powerful enough to play modern games and consume more power than Intel graphics. The only advantage the K40IN has over its competitors is better warranty coverage. Overall we like the K40IN but are hard-pressed to recommend it for the stated reasons.

Pros:

• Reasonable build quality
• Great screen and keyboard
• Four and a half hours of battery life
• Good system performance
• Runs very cool and quiet
• Two year warranty and one year accidental damage coverage

Cons:

• No HDMI port or ExpressCard slot
• Weak graphics
• Horrible speakers
• Price point too high versus competitors
• Glossy plastic difficult to keep clean
• Loud touchpad buttons
• Too many pre-installed utilities

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Review Dell Latitude E4300

The Dell Latitude E4300 is Dell's most powerful ultraportable machine released to date. This 13.3" notebook is powered by low voltage Intel Core 2 Duo processors and boasts an incredible battery life with no compromises in performance.

Dell Latitude E4300 Specifications:

• Intel Core 2 Duo SP9600 (2.53GHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
• Microsoft Windows Vista Business SP2, with downgrade rights for Windows XP SP3 and upgrade rights to Windows 7 Professional
• 13.3" LED WXGA LCD Screen (1280x800)
• 1GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM (upgraded to 4GB)
• 80GB 7200RPM Western Digital 2.5" Hard Drive
• Intel X4500MHD video card
• Internal Fixed DVD+/-RW Optical Drive
• Intel WiFi Link 5300 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Intel Gigabit Ethernet, WWAN Capable
• Backlit Keyboard
• 6-Cell 60WHr Battery, with 6-Cell 48WHr Battery Slice
• 3-Year Warranty with On-Site Technical Support
• Dell E-Port Docking Station, with Dell Flat Panel Monitor Stand
• Dimensions: 12.2" x 8.6" x 1.1"
• Measured Weight: ~ 3.7lbs

The Latitude E4300 starts at $1,349, which is fairly average for an ultraportable business machine. However, we all know that the extra options and features always cost more - this notebook as configured will set you back by a staggering $2,054 before taxes.

Build and Design
Our first impressions of the Dell Latitude E4300 were quite positive. The notebook itself has a small LCD bezel and a tightly integrated chassis design, so not only is the notebook rather thin it also presents the smallest footprint that is possible for a 13.3" notebook. Dell also adopted a much more modern looking design featuring sharp lines and a black finish with the new series. The back of the LCD housing has a brushed aluminum appearance to it, which adds a nice bit of flair to an otherwise safe professional design. While the finish is designed to impress, it is a fingerprint magnet. The black matte finish on the rest of the notebook looks equally sharp, but wears down on and around the edges of the notebook.

Build quality is above average, and quite frankly the construction feels ver solid. The base of the chassis is built from magnesium alloy and packed with parts, resulting in a design that protects its internals well. The right palmrest has a little bit too much flex, but there is little to no flex to be found anywhere else on the base of the chassis. Magnesium alloy is also used in the LCD housing, and the screen housing does a really good job of protecting the screen from impacts. We were never able to produce distortions on the LCD screen. The extra bulge at the top of the LCD lid is for the WWAN antenna. While it sticks out only a little bit, that top bulge had just a little bit of give to it.

The screen hinges are well built, as the display never wiggles yet provides a comfortable level of resistance to movement. When closing the notebook there is no latch for the LCD, it is held shut by magnetic force. The design provides enough resistance that the notebook is not going to open accidentally, but it is not difficult to open the computer up either.

The keyboard is well supported on the Latitude E4300, and there is very little flex to be found so even violent typers should find themselves at ease with how sturdy the keyboard feels. While other Dell Latitude notebooks have a modular bay design to accomodate an optical drive or hard drive or a weight saver module, Dell choose to build in a fixed optical drive so the E4300 will not support two hard drives. Because upgrading the optical drive is more difficult than it would be with other Latitude notebooks, the E4300 starts with a DVD+/-RW optical drive that is capable of everything a consumer needs except perhaps Blu-Ray capability. Fortunately, a fixed Blu-Ray optical drive is available for a not so low price when ordering the computer.

Perhaps the only shortcoming in the design of the Latitude E4300 is the battery. Dell appears to have dropped the 3-cell battery option from their ordering system, leaving only the 6-cell battery which sticks out from the back of the notebook by about half an inch. While I do not mind the extrusion, others may take issue with it. However, we have a difficult time imagining that the 3-cell battery could have provided adaquate battery life so we think the 6-cell is worth it.

The Latitude E4300 also has a wide range of expansion options, available via the docking connector at the bottom. If you need legacy ports not found on the computer, Dell has a legacy port extender for Latitude notebooks. The notebook can be docked to one of two different Latitude series docking stations, and each dock supports up to two external monitors. If the 6-cell battery does not provide enough longevity, a battery slice can also be purchased ($199) that will work in tandem with the standard battery to provide a much longer battery life. The hard drive can be upgraded easily by removing two screws and pulling the drive out, and by removing the middle access panel on the bottom of the notebook both the RAM and Latitude ON cards can be upgraded. WiFi cards and WWAN cards can be installed by removing the corner panel as well.

Screen and Speaker
The Dell Latitude E4300 comes with an LED backlit screen with a native resolution of 1280x800 (WXGA). The screen resolution is a perfect fit for a 13.3" notebook, and the panel looks nice when viewing documents, videos, and other content. The notebook has fifteen distinct levels of screen brightness adjustable by using the Fn+Up or Fn+Down key combinations. The dimmest screen levels are great for indoor viewing and low light conditions, and it was amazing to see that the screen was quite readable in bright outdoor environments when the screen was set to maximum brightness. It gets so bright, in fact, that colors start to wash out a bit on the highest settings.

We normally expect vertical viewing angles to be quite poor on notebook displays (because of the type of LCD technology they use). The E4300 defined a new level of poor. When viewing the screen from above colors quickly wash out and become unreadable, and when viewing the screen from below the screen fades away ever so quickly. Horizontal viewing angles were fortunately fairly good. Viewing the screen from almost any position to the left and right of the notebook still produced a very readable display even though colors would start to wash out.

This section was called "Screen and Speaker" for a reason. The Dell Latitude E4300 comes with one lowly speaker at the front of the notebook. It sounds tinny, there is absolutely no bass, and at the higher ends of the volume range it sounds muddled. It works for business use, it works for those to are listening to audio on the road, but do not expect premium sound out of this notebook.

Keyboard and Touchpad
While there are certainly a lot of reasons to praise the Dell Latitude E4300, the high quality keyboard one of the most prominent reasons. While the layout of the keyboard is slightly different than what can be found in the rest of the Latitude E series, the Dell Latitude E4300 offers the same high quality typing experience as any other Latitude E series notebook with a backlit keyboard. While some Latitude E series notebooks have an option for a non-backlit keyboard, after comparing the backlit versus non-backlit keyboards we can say with confidence that the backlit keyboard offers a superior typing experience. One of the unique features found on the keyboard is, of course, the LED backlights that serve to illuminate the keyboard in dark environments. This backlighting is user adjustable and it can be tied in with the Ambient Light Sensor for automatic backlight adjustments.

Like the previous generation of Latitude notebooks, the keyboard provides just the right amount of tactile feedback and firmness while never flexing under stress. The new keyboard design raises the quality bar - it looks and feels like each key has its own distinctive personal space to it and it is almost impossible to accidentally hit multiple keys. Over time, it actually felt like my typing accuracy and speed was improving.

Perhaps the only drawback of this keyboard is the layout of some of the keys. The half height function keys, and the location of the Home/End/Insert/Delete keys (upper half height row) and the Page Up/Down keys (next to the arrow keys) take a little getting used to. Once we got used to the locations of the Page Up/Down keys it was actually easier to navigate through webpages, documents, and tabbed interfaces.

When comparing this keyboard to the keyboard of other Latitude E series notebooks, they all provide about the same typing experience but it just feels like the E4300's keyboard is a little more firm. If it seems like we cannot stop praising the keyboard, you are right. Best. Keyboard. Ever.

While the touchpad is not bad, it does not provide as stellar as an experience as the keyboard does. The touchpad itself is quite smooth, but it felt like there was just a little input lag on the touchpad. When using the touchpad, occasionally the touchpad would randomly stop working for a moment or two. It does not happen often enough to be a serious issue, and the problem always corrects itself, but I have to be a tough grader on a machine with this high a cost.

The touchpad redeems itself with a few extra features. Having two sets of mouse buttons is a plus, as is the third mouse button found on the upper row of touchpad buttons. Dell also includs a pointer stick in the middle of the keyboard. Perhaps the best feature about the touchpad is what Dell calls 'circular scrolling.' When moving your finger up or down the scrolling area on the touchpad, if you keep moving your finger in a circular fashion the touchpad will continue to scroll through the active window on your desktop. The direction of the scroll can be changed just by alternating the direction of circular movement as well. The touchpad supports both horizontal and vertical scrolling, which means that in combination with circular scrolling any document is going to be easily navigable.

Ports and Features
Despite not having a lot of real estate to work with, Dell managed to include a surprisingly useful array of ports though we wished a third USB port could have been included. One USB port, one combination USB/eSATA port, VGA out, SmartCard reader, SD card reader, ExpressCard/34, audio in and out, Firewire-400, 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) Ethernet LAN, and a Kensington lock slot are available on the machine. It would have been nice to have had a DisplayPort or DVI output instead of a VGA output, but we suppose VGA out is still an important feature for business notebooks.

Left: VGA, USB/eSATA, fan vent, and SmartCard Reader


Front: SD card reader


Right: ExpressCard/34, DVD+/-RW, audio out, audio in, Firewire-400, and USB


Back: Gigabit Ethernet, Battery, AC Power Input, Kensington Lock Slot

Dell also has two docking station solutions for the new Latitude E series notebooks, one of which is the E-Port Replicator that was included with our unit. With the docking station, the E4300 can be transformed into a full desktop workstation that supports up to two digitally connected monitors.

Left: 3x USB, audio in, audio out

Front: Dell Docking Connector

Right: Kensington Lock Slot, Laptop Locking Mechanism

Back: Connector for additional Dell docking products, eSATA/USB, Gigabit Ethernet, 2x USB, VGA, DVI, DisplayPort, AC Power Input

Performance and Benchmarks
The Dell Latitude E4300 might be a small notebook, but it packs a big punch thanks to the 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, and the Western Digital Caviar Black 80GB 7200RPM drive. While the laptop can only be configured with the Intel 4500MHD IGP, graphics performance with the laptop is certainly adaquate for any non-gaming application. Multimedia performance was certainly good even without a dedicated graphics card, as we had no issues displaying 720P content or 1080P content that was scaled down to the LCD's native resolution.

The 80GB 7200RPM hard drive was certainly fast (perhaps the fastest laptop drive I have personally tested to date), but the limited storage capacity could be a problem for users that need to use a lot of applications and store a lot of data on the drive. The E4300 by default comes with a 160GB 5400RPM drive for $10 less, and hard drive upgrades are reasonably priced. But if you want to abandon the traditional hard drive for a solid state drive, users should be advised to purchase an aftermarket SSD to save money and/or get a higher performing SSD than the (most likely under-performing Samsung) OEM SSD that Dell will include.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

3DMark06 measures overall graphics performance for gaming (higher scores mean better performance):

HDTune storage drive performance test:

Heat and Noise
The Dell Latitude E4300 is certainly a performer, but having this much power inside a small frame presents some design challenges. The notebook itself only has a single fan that vents out to the side and bottom of the notebook, and during normal use temperatures hovered in the mid 80's.

However, the single fan can only provide so much cooling power during our extreme stress test where parts of the E4300 soared into the triple digit temperatures. The images below show the external temperature readings in degrees Fahrenheit while stressing the CPU, GPU, and hard drive at the same time. It is hot enough that you do not want to place it on your lap, but fortunately the keyboard and touchpad remain at acceptable temperature levels. It might be a good idea to stay away from the fan vent if running intensive tasks on the computer, as the ambient air coming out of the vent topped 110F.

In an office or home setting, running your typical tasks, the laptop was as quiet as a mouse. The only time the fan was even noticably intrusive was during the extreme stress tests, when the fan was running at full tilt. Even then, it was not too loud nor was there any high pitched whine.

Battery Life
Dell built in a handy array of useful power saving features with the Latitude E series notebooks. The Dell Control Panel is your portal to extreme power management where it is possible to lower the refresh rate of the LCD screen, completely deactivate the power hungry optical drive, automatically turn on/off Windows Aero, and selectively turn off or power manage most of the ports on the notebook. It does not hurt that the Dell Latitude E4300 has an LED backlit screen either, which uses less power than CCFL backlighting found in most other notebooks.

Latitude notebooks have traditionally had support for running two batteries in tandem, and the Latitude E series continues this tradition with the "battery slice." It fits on the bottom of the notebook and adds about a quarter inch to the thickness of the laptop. It adds a significant amount of weight to the machine, but the extra battery life is worth it if longevity is essential.

Dell also includes a program called the Dell Control Panel with its Latitude E series notebooks. It is a very useful program that allows users to selectively shut down or reconfigure peripherals on the notebook, to enable users to get the most of of their battery. Even though it sometimes forgot one or two settings after resuming from standby, it clearly demonstrates its use during our battery tests.

After four really long battery tests, it is clear to us that the Dell Latitude E4300 is a winner in this department. The results are almost unbelieveable for a notebook of this size.

Standard Battery, All Power Savings	6 hours 31 minutes
Standard Battery and Battery Slice, All Power Savings	12 hours 23 minutes
Standard Battery, No Power Savings	3 hours 10 minutes
Standard Battery and Battery Slice, No Power Savings	5 hours 45 minutes

During the tests with power savings enabled, the screen was at 33% brightness, wireless was on, Windows 7 was set to the 'Power Savings' power profile, and all the power savings features in Dell Control Panel were enabled (except the one where the LCD screen automatically reduces the backlight level during periods of inactivity) while we casually browsed the internet and worked on general office tasks like writing this review. With a maximum battery life of 12 hours and 23 minutes, all day computing is certainly an option with the E4300.

Tests with no power savings were more intense for the notebook. No power savings features were enabled, Windows 7 Aero was running and the power profile was set to 'High Performance,' the LCD backlight was set to 100%, and we watced the DVD movies the entire time to keep the machine actively processing while we edited documents. Flash games were also playing in the background to further stress the processor. Despite the heavier workload, the E4300 is more than capable of lasting through several feature films during long distance travels.

Conclusion
The Dell Latitude E4300 is a power house of a notebook that is as small as can be. Designed for business use, built with quality in mind, and can handle any office or media related task thrown at it. It has an incredible battery life, great power saving capabilities, and the wide range of display brightnesses and keyboard brightnesses are great features not found in most notebooks. The speaker is a bit below average, the touchpad slightly above average at best, and the chassis has one or two flex points that should not be there in a notebook at this price range. Even with those flaws in the design, there is a lot to love about the Dell Latitude E4300 should you need the power, portability, or longevity of one of the smallest Latitude notebooks released to date.

Pros:

• Above average build quality, lightweight
• Best keyboard and useful touchpad features
• Extremely long battery life

Cons:

• Subpar speaker
• Twitchy touchpad
• High priced upgrades

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