Dell Latitude E5410 review

Thanks to the host of configuration options on offer, configuring a Dell system can be both challenging and rewarding. That’s especially so in the business-friendly Latitude range: the ordering process for the E5410 walks you through no fewer than 33 decisions as you pick your components and tack on – or reject – accessories and services.

What doesn’t change is the exterior. However you spec it, the Latitude E5410 is a 14.1in notebook in a tough grey and black chassis. Its size strikes an appealing balance, with a screen that’s big enough to work from all day, set into a frame that will fit comfortably in a satchel. And you don’t need to be too anxious about carrying it about, as the hard disk heads will automatically park if the unit detects it’s been dropped. At 2.4kg, though, it’s a tad too heavy to cart around comfortably all day.

Aesthetically, the E5410 errs on the side of understatement. The keyboard has a pleasingly chunky feel, but sags in the middle when you type: you quickly get used to it, but the rock-solid Sony VAIO S11 is streets ahead. As usual, you get both a trackpad and a trackpoint controller, and there’s a fingerprint reader at the right-hand side. The speakers are loud and clear enough to project a presentation around an office, though they lack bass.

In terms of look and feel, the E5410’s trump card is its screen. You can choose a regular 1,366 x 768 display, which is a comfortable resolution for a laptop of this size, but we moved up to the matte 1,440 x 900 panel, which gives text and icons extra sharpness. Brightness and colour vibrancy are impressive too, and though the contrast naturally can’t match that of a glossy panel, the pay-off is a glare-free display that should remain easy on the eye in any environment. As an added bonus, there’s a two-megapixel camera set into the bezel.

When it comes to connectivity, the Latitude E5410 looks slightly bare: on all models, the only video output is an analogue VGA port, and for external peripherals you’re limited to four USB 2 sockets and a mini-FireWire connector. There’s no PS/2, parallel or serial ports for legacy hardware, nor the more modern luxuries of USB 3, eSATA or ExpressCard (the slot at the side is an old-school PCMCIA card slot, which can be optionally swapped for a SmartCard reader). If you need more connections you’ll need to buy one of the various types of dock Dell offers.

Networking options are more generous: Gigabit Ethernet is included as standard, and you can optionally add Bluetooth 3.0 and a range of 802.11 options, all the way up to Intel’s dual-band Ultimate-N 6300 adapter, which supports triple 802.11n streams for a theoretical bandwidth of up to 450Mb/sec. Dell’s website refers to an internal wireless broadband adaptor too, though this doesn’t appear to be available to order right now.

Performance naturally depends on the components you choose. Even the basic model, with a Core i3-350M and 2GB of DDR3 RAM, will be perfectly powerful enough for the “holy trinity” of Word, Excel and PowerPoint – we’d expect it to score around 1.20 in our benchmarks. Our review model was souped up with a Core i7-620M and 4GB of RAM, putting it nominally on a par with the Lenovo ThinkPad T510. In practice, though, where the Lenovo managed a storming benchmark score of 1.91, the Latitude E5410 came in slightly lower with a score of 1.79.

That may be partly down to the E5410’s more densely packed frame causing the Core i7 processor to run hotter and hence make more conservative use of Turbo Boost. But another factor is probably the GPU: while the Lenovo sports an ISV-certified Nvidia NVS 3100M GPU, the Dell is limited to Intel’s integrated HD Graphics. Thus, although our test system could be described as a workstation-class performer, it’s unsuitable for CAD work or heavy 3D visualisation. It’s also worth noting that the E5410 is supplied with only 32-bit Windows, so if you want to push the RAM beyond 4GB you’ll need to find and install your own 64-bit OS.

Battery performance is another movable feast: you can save money with a 3,300mAh battery, or splash out an extra £65 exc VAT for a huge 7,700mAh unit. We tested the middle option, a six-cell 5,000m-Ah battery, which gave us 4hrs 14mins of light use.

But perhaps what makes Dell’s business offering stand out more than anything is the range of ancillary services you can add on. Dell will optionally move data and applications from your old PC, place asset tags and anti-theft tracking devices on the new system, and undertake any subsequent data recovery and certified data destruction for you.

The basic one-year carriage and return warranty can be upgraded all the way to a three-year, next-business-day on-site contract with insurance against accidental damage. Dell’s ProManage service even offers remote system monitoring and maintenance. It’s not cheap, of course: sign up for every service going and you’ll add more than £750 exc VAT to the cost of the system. But when you consider the cost of IT staff – and of lost productivity should disaster strike – it could still be an excellent deal for a small business.

The Latitude E5410 won’t suit everyone in the office, but as a general-purpose business laptop, it’s hard to fault. Tough, functional and endlessly configurable, you could fill three-quarters of a business with various E5410 notebooks – ranging from the £629 exc VAT base system right up to the high-end model seen here – and hear no complaint.

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