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You guys aren't going to believe the laptop I just got for $100.

User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#1

Dell Latitude E7440 Ultrabook

3.5 pounds of magnesium awesome. This thing gives desktop level performance and I could fit in it a trenchcoat next to my Tech 9's and custom Doom level floppy disks.

14" 1366x768 (Gonna upgrade it to the optional 1080p IPS panel for $75)
Core i5 4310u. 2.0GHz minimum, but the cooling is so good on this thing it's always turboed to 2.6-2.7, and occasionally up to 3.0. Go Dell!
Intel HD 4400 graphics. Same as HD 4600 but 1.1GHz instead of 1.3. It's faster than the old 3670 in my Studio XPS 1640.
256GB Samsung SSD
Empty hard drive bay. Already ordered the drive caddy!
8GB DDR3-1600 RAM
HD Webcam
Backlit keyboard coated in vulcanized rubber
Fingerprint reader
SD card slot
HDMI and DisplayPort out
AMAZING SPEAKERS. SERIOUSLY, HOW IS THIS LITTLE THING SOUNDING MILES BETTER THAN THE 15 INCHERS I REPAIR ON A DAILY BASIS?! THE SOUNDSTAGE IS HUGE, THEY EVEN HAD PRESENCE TWO ROOMS AWAY!

Did I mention it's completely made of solid fucking metal and vulcanized rubber, and it's powder coated instead of painted?

Now, here are the VERY few things I don't like:

-Single channel RAM. What the fuck, Dell?! You couldn't give me two 4GB sticks? Now I gotta upgrade it to 16GB so the GPU can work at full speed.
-Shallow hard drive bay. No 9.5mm drives will fit, which means my Hitachi Travelstar 1TB, which is one of the greatest pieces of computer hardware ever made, is a no go. That drive outpaces most desktop hard drives. Now I have to install a 5400RPM 1TB WD Blue Slim because no one else makes 7mm 1TB hard drives.
-The base model screen is good, not great, and a little "screen doorey," but who cares, she's getting a full HD IPS panel in a month or two!

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 21 March 2015 - 11:22 AM

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#2

Cool where did you get the laptop from and what OS does it have?

So Dell is your favorite? What do you think a/b the Alienware series? I asked you this in the past. Same thing? In case if I want to get a gaming laptop in the future (one w/ Windows 10 if it works right). Is it Lenovo, MSI or an i5 Alienware?

This post has been edited by DustFalcon85: 21 March 2015 - 03:24 PM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#3

I got it from a black guy. Literally. LOL I hope I don't have to return it to the cops as stolen goods sometime soon, but fuck it. He came across as an IT guy so it may have been "old" stock lying around. And yeah if you're curious it's got a legit Win 7 Pro sticker. You can't even order Windows 8 on some Latitudes and Precision workstations.

Dell's higher end stuff and their business units are the best PC laptops, IMO, closely followed by HP Elitebooks, although Elitebooks will gladly trade blows with some Latitudes for the title of "best in class." Dell's consumer stuff is hit and miss, but I notice a massive difference in the number of Dell problems in their post-buyout units. Mike really upped their quality. I'm not a huge fan of consumer laptops, I'd much rather purchase an off lease business model. It just has to have decent graphics performance, nothing great. I don't game on the go. Business laptops feel a million times better for day to day use, and they're much more durable. Ergonomics and reliability are king.

As for Alienware, the less said the better. Overpriced as all hell.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 21 March 2015 - 04:25 PM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#4

I just got the 16GB RAM upgrade and played with the graphics. CS:GO runs amazing with high textures/vysnc/low everything else at 768p, and Mass Effect 3 runs great with no shadows/AA and vsync forced off with the framerate capped at 60 using the Intel dev tool.

Games will need tweaking on this thing, but it's so rare I play them on the go it doesn't really matter.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 25 March 2015 - 05:11 PM

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User is offline   ReaperMan 

#5

Either that guy stole it or was a complete idiot.
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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#6

Pretty sure he stole multiples of them...I only have one though. And I love her. #justlinuxthings

I love business class laptops. I don't want gimmicks. I want a portable computer. A legit portable computer that's sturdy, fast, ergonomically awesome, bulletproof reliable, and good for multimedia. Because it's a fucking computer, not a God damn toy like every other commodity good these days.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 25 March 2015 - 11:15 PM

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#7

Will that laptop run Polymer?

This post has been edited by DustFalcon85: 26 March 2015 - 01:50 PM

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User is offline   oasiz 

  • Dr. Effector

#8

I recently got this from work as they wanted to throw it away: http://www.samsung.c.../NP530U3C-A03US

Mine is the a07se model, popped in a SSD + 8GB extra RAM.

While I won't complain much for it being free and all, I'd really like a numpad at least trough Fn for building and a better display :)

Might be swapping this for a dell as well as the x-series lenovos have a really awful touchpad.

EDIT: Also I've got to say, dell makes some really nice and solid notebooks. Had the 13" E8400 before this (also from work) and I really liked the form factor, sturdy and felt more like a reliable machine than a fragile toy. Nice luck with yours!

This post has been edited by oasiz: 26 March 2015 - 06:32 AM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#9

View PostDustFalcon85, on 26 March 2015 - 05:43 AM, said:

Will that laptop run Polymer?


Not for a while, I bent the heatpipe on the heatsink taking it out LOL. Was gonna Arctic Silver it. I've never done that before, this pipe is like tinfoil thin because if they made it any thicker it wouldn't work, and they're already out of room.

Thanks for the shitty video, Parts-People! Dell experts my ass. I should have just trusted my gut instincts and pried at the base with a flathead to break the bond.

Just had to grab a brand new one off eBay with express shipping. Retards. Yeah that method works if IT'S ALREADY BEEN REMOVED AND THE PASTE WAS CLEANED OFF.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 26 March 2015 - 02:36 PM

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User is offline   Martin 

#10

Stolen.

Anyway, I had a Dell Latitude E6410 up until recently (got it in 2010). I don't know as much about computer hardware as you seem to, but as you say - solid as fuck. My friend's kid jumped on it from his bed (it was on the floor). I kind of quietly thought "Well, that's that fucked" as it was my own stupid fault for leaving it on the floor. Worked perfectly afterward. We lol'd. It survived countless train journeys, car journeys, being in my backpack when I cycle. I saw many newer laptops friends bought come and go, even though they sat in one place and were not misused.

The ol' Latitude just kept on going, though. They're business-class, and that'd why they're so rugged. They're also made to be maintained. If your keyboard gets broken somehow, you just buy the replacement part and plug it in. I had a replacement just in case I broke it. Never did. The keyboard even survived spillages.

What a great laptop, and I would easily buy another (newer) Latitude. At the end of the day, a laptop is a portable computer, and the business-class Dells totally deliver on that front. Consumer models are weak by comparison, and cannot take any abuse. Try chucking your Acer laptop in a rucksack and cycling 11 miles over rough terrain. You'll probably find it has developed an issue by the end. But that's kind of ridiculous/irrelevant. The point is, they will last you, and you don't have to treat them like fragile things. You can arrive home and throw it onto the sofa. It'll be fine.
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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#11

Yeah business class laptops are the shit. You'll see plenty of old Thinkpads power on after being caught in a fire, just not the newer Chinkpads.

I got the hard drive in, and I went to install the 1080p IPS panel and it was fucked. The upper backlight didn't turn on and it had a few dead pixels. Getting another soon. Way to dip the trick LG.

Also, stolen, yes, from a corporation. Oh well! It kicks too much ass for me to care at this price.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 06 April 2015 - 09:26 PM

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User is offline   Inspector Lagomorf 

  • Glory To Motherland!

#12

So Jimmy, you'd recommend Dell Latitude laptops (even refurbished) for durability? I'm looking at getting one after my Inspiron LCD crapped out after I made the mistake of taking it on board an airplane.
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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#13

Absolutely. They're the best PC laptops right now, although a high end HP Elitebook is still nicer than a low end Latitude. Dell doesn't differentiate their model lines, HP has both the ProBooks and Elitebooks. There really isn't any reliability difference between those three brands, just durability and features. I'd get whatever Latitude/Probook/Elitebook has the best specs within your budget.

Just stay away from the Latitude E5420 and you're set, many of the refurb units have grounding issues with the chassis and are hypersensitive to ESD, I froze my brother's myself before he exchanged it. The slightest shock causes display distortion and total lockup, even ones you can't feel. My coworker had the same problem, but fixed it by covering the entire inner magnesium frame in electrical tape. That said though my friend has one and it's been fucking golden for years. Don't take the risk, it's well documented online.

If you don't have much cash I'd STRONGLY recommend a Sandy Bridge (2000 series) i5. Although the integrated video sucks, the CPU itself is stellar and is nearly comparable to a brand new Haswell. You can get decked out refurb Sandies for $300 right now. Try to avoid anything older, a Sandy is almost the same price and worlds faster than anything before it, and even today it beats half the laptops on store shelves.

Also, LCD's are cheap. Even cheaper if it's an older CCFL screen. Dells are also usually pretty easy to work on so it may be a good idea to fix it yourself. HP is my nemesis. I fucking hate working on them.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 18 April 2015 - 11:06 PM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#14

Also, two other things to consider if you're a hardware geek:

1. Dell is the only company who let's you do whatever you want with your expensive, geeky, business laptop. The mini PCI-E slots are not vendor locked. If you don't like your WiFi card you can put whatever you want in, or populate a spare slot with whatever your heart desires. HP and Lenovo laptops require whitelisted BIOSes to be flashed, and those are made by random people online, not available for all models, and never kept fully up to date.

2. Probooks and Elitebooks are a NIGHTMARE to do complicated repairs on. Anything beyond the massive access panel is pure madness. That said, these systems don't break. Ever. If you have to replace the motherboard, or other internal shit, it's because you spilled your fucking shitty Starbucks latte on it.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 18 April 2015 - 10:50 PM

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User is offline   Tea Monster 

  • Polymancer

#15

Laptops are the Spawn of Satan. Optimised for energy efficiency over muscle, hobbled, crippled, unupgradable. A POX UPON THEIR WITHERED KIN!!!!
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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#16

Laptops are fantastic. Buy a good one.

1. Gaming on the go is degenerate. If you're on the go, you should be interacting with people around you or using the laptop as a springboard for entertainment. Get something with just enough graphical muscle for some fun here and there when you're alone.

2. A real laptop *COUGH*LATITUDE*COUGH* has a wonderful keyboard, a great touchpad, speakers that kick, and a screen so clear and bright you can see God's face in it. In short, it feels better to use than most desktops. My E7440 makes a Macbook Air shit it's fucking pants, even my i5 is faster than the i7 Air by a huge margin and it's upgradeable as shit.

3. Laptops aren't slow. My 2.6GHz i5 dual core w/HT fucking SCREAMS with an SSD, it's nearly as responsive as my desktop. It's great for all power user functions. It's even has hardware accelerated video encoding on the integrated GPU! It feels like you're using a 3.5lb desktop, it's magical.

4. Non-upgradeable my ass, although my E7440 has an ultra low voltage chip which means it's soldered to the motherboard, with most laptops you can get YEARS of use out of them. When it feels like it's getting slow, slap in a faster hard drive or an SSD, more RAM, and a used CPU off eBay for $30-50. Upgrade the video card, or if it's soldered to the motherboard, buy a used or new old stock board that's compatible with a better GPU. Jam in a faster WiFi card and upgrade to a higher res screen. The sky is the limit, and it's cheap as FUCK! No one wants used laptop parts...

I mean, seriously, my brother's E6420 can be upgraded to A FUCKING QUAD CORE. For a hundred bucks! How bad ass is that?! And you pop off a single access panel and the heatsink is staring you right in the face. $300 for a refurb unit, $100 for a CPU, and another $100 for an SSD. You now have a legitimate desktop replacement that can do anything except hardcore gaming. It will kill anything else at that price range.

If you know what you're doing laptops are the shit for upgrades. I love tweaking them out. It's so much fun. Desktops are too easy now.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 19 April 2015 - 09:04 PM

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#17

View PostPerson of Color, on 19 April 2015 - 08:58 PM, said:

Laptops are fantastic. Buy a good one.

1. Gaming on the go is degenerate. If you're on the go, you should be interacting with people around you or using the laptop as a springboard for entertainment. Get something with just enough graphical muscle for some fun here and there when you're alone.

2. A real laptop *COUGH*LATITUDE*COUGH* has a wonderful keyboard, a great touchpad, speakers that kick, and a screen so clear and bright you can see God's face in it. In short, it feels better to use than most desktops. My E7440 makes a Macbook Air shit it's fucking pants, even my i5 is faster than the i7 Air by a huge margin and it's upgradeable as shit.

3. Laptops aren't slow. My 2.6GHz i5 dual core w/HT fucking SCREAMS with an SSD, it's nearly as responsive as my desktop. It's great for all power user functions. It's even has hardware accelerated video encoding on the integrated GPU! It feels like you're using a 3.5lb desktop, it's magical.

4. Non-upgradeable my ass, although my E7440 has an ultra low voltage chip which means it's soldered to the motherboard, with most laptops you can get YEARS of use out of them. When it feels like it's getting slow, slap in a faster hard drive or an SSD, more RAM, and a used CPU off eBay for $30-50. Upgrade the video card, or if it's soldered to the motherboard, buy a used or new old stock board that's compatible with a better GPU. Jam in a faster WiFi card and upgrade to a higher res screen. The sky is the limit, and it's cheap as FUCK! No one wants used laptop parts...

I mean, seriously, my brother's E6420 can be upgraded to A FUCKING QUAD CORE. For a hundred bucks! How bad ass is that?! And you pop off a single access panel and the heatsink is staring you right in the face. $300 for a refurb unit, $100 for a CPU, and another $100 for an SSD. You now have a legitimate desktop replacement that can do anything except hardcore gaming. It will kill anything else at that price range.

If you know what you're doing laptops are the shit for upgrades. I love tweaking them out. It's so much fun. Desktops are too easy now.


Indeed. I bought a pair of Corsair Vengeance 8GB chips for my HTPC and I'm thinking about dumping the old 4GB ones into the laptop. I also may slap on an SSD because I don't need much storage in the laptop and an SSD-powered system is way faster.

The problem is that here in Brazil the budget stuff still costs a lot. Highend stuff costs as much as a used car. I have two machines with me ATM, a cheap LG one which has the worst wifi I've ever come across and my current Asus one. I'm trying to get rid of the LG for some money.
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User is offline   Fox 

  • Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!

#18

Quote

You guys aren't going to believe the laptop I just got for $100.

View PostPerson of Color, on 21 March 2015 - 04:22 PM, said:

I hope I don't have to return it to the cops as stolen goods sometime soon, but fuck it.

What a surprise...


View PostDuke of Hazzard, on 20 April 2015 - 01:37 AM, said:

The problem is that here in Brazil the budget stuff still costs a lot.

To make it clear, cars also cost a lot more here. It's estimated to be about four times more.

This post has been edited by Fox: 20 April 2015 - 02:07 AM

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User is offline   Inspector Lagomorf 

  • Glory To Motherland!

#19

View PostPerson of Color, on 19 April 2015 - 08:58 PM, said:

2. A real laptop *COUGH*LATITUDE*COUGH* has a wonderful keyboard, a great touchpad, speakers that kick, and a screen so clear and bright you can see God's face in it. In short, it feels better to use than most desktops. My E7440 makes a Macbook Air shit it's fucking pants, even my i5 is faster than the i7 Air by a huge margin and it's upgradeable as shit.


Bah. I wish you had posted this before I bought my refurb Lenovo ThinkPad L412. It has an Intel Core i5 M 520@2.40 gHz. It arrives later this week.

Still, I only paid $160 for it. I just hope it will take more of a pounding than my Inspiron did.

Quote

Also, LCD's are cheap. Even cheaper if it's an older CCFL screen. Dells are also usually pretty easy to work on so it may be a good idea to fix it yourself. HP is my nemesis. I fucking hate working on them.


Yes, it is easy to work on. But getting a new LCD for an Inspiron is like putting a band-aid on a sucking 12-gauge chest wound.
I always thought Dells were fairly easy to maintain and upgrade for the sake of making it easy for their tech support staff. :D

This post has been edited by Comrade Major: 20 April 2015 - 08:03 AM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#20

View PostComrade Major, on 20 April 2015 - 06:51 AM, said:

Bah. I wish you had posted this before I bought my refurb Lenovo ThinkPad L412. It has an Intel Core i5 M 520@2.40 gHz. It arrives later this week.

Still, I only paid $160 for it. I just hope it will take more of a pounding than my Inspiron did.


Wow, that's like retarded cheap.

The Edges and L's aren't as durable as the others, they use cheaper plastic. Same goes for the R series.

But for a buck sixty who gives a shit?

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 21 April 2015 - 01:25 AM

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User is offline   Inspector Lagomorf 

  • Glory To Motherland!

#21

View PostPerson of Color, on 21 April 2015 - 01:24 AM, said:

The Edges and L's aren't as durable as the others, they use cheaper plastic. Same goes for the R series.

But for a buck sixty who gives a shit?


I can get a Latitude for roughly the same price if I want. If you think that the L's aren't going to take a beating, let me know so I can swap it out. I'd rather have a Laptop that'll last me for a year or so.
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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#22

No they're durable, just not as durable as a T series or a higher end Latitude. Drop them hard enough and they WILL crack.
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User is offline   Inspector Lagomorf 

  • Glory To Motherland!

#23

That's okay. Durable enough is what I'm looking for. I plan on keeping this thing in a Laptop sleeve, which itself will be in a Laptop bag, at all times. If I need to bubblewrap this thing everywhere I go, I can do that too.
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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#24

I doubt you'll need bubblewrap.
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User is offline   Inspector Lagomorf 

  • Glory To Motherland!

#25

Bubblewrap was a minor exaggeration.:D
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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#26

Just fill the backpack with those delicious edible packing peanuts made out of cornstarch.
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User is offline   Inspector Lagomorf 

  • Glory To Motherland!

#27

The Thinkpad arrived. It's a brick compared to my Inspiron. Much faster too. I love it!
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#28

View PostComrade Major, on 20 April 2015 - 06:51 AM, said:

I always thought Dells were fairly easy to maintain and upgrade for the sake of making it easy for their tech support staff. :D


But of course. It's like a VW Beetle: it was built cheap that way so any basement ogre could tinker with it.
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#29

Uhh... Person of Color. That laptop got like 2.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon.com. One person said that he had trouble w/ a support center in India and then hanged and dropped calls. Also Dell has no authorized repair centers whatsoever. Are people making this bullsh*t up just to demonize the computer companies?

http://www.amazon.co...&sortBy=helpful

Speaking of call centers... Why are they located in India for? I know the labor is cheap in that country but just to save money?

This post has been edited by DustFalcon85: 21 May 2016 - 11:51 AM

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User is offline   Tea Monster 

  • Polymancer

#30

Your average interwebz shopper knows fuck-all about tech. They will give it one star if they ordered it in the wrong colour or if they can't find the power button. If you are going to go by votes, at least go to somewhere with a technical background, like Toms or Ars, etc.
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