Slick and Stylish Laptop. Review on Dell E4200

All things considered, I expected this laptop to be a bitsturdier than I found it to be. This isnot to say that it necessarily felt cheap, or seemed like it used low qualitymaterials – rather – based on how sleek it looks, I expected it to be more thanit was. Given it has a “Magnesium AlloyLCD back and base”, I I was surprised to see how much flex there was in thescreen pressing my finger into the center from the back .

Since owning a Lenovo X61s now for a few months, I have beenspoiled by the great keyboard it has so I was also a bit disappointed at theoverly “plastic” feel and non-rigid keys(non-rigid in the sense that if youplace your finger on a key, you can slightly move the key around in a circularmotion – more so than on my desktop keyboards or x61s.

All that being said, everything else was well built. One annoyance I have is when the battery is abit loose and can wiggle around a bit, but I was quite pleased to find that thebatteries in both e4200s were a tight, well secured fit. The rest of the chassis was as good as anyother laptop: sturdy, and no way toreally “squeeze” and flex anywhere(other than the screen and a bit on thekeyboard).

One of the major differences this laptop had over mostprevious laptops I’ve seen in the past is the addition of an eSata port. However, this eSata port also doubles as aUSB 2.0 port, so luckily it does indeed have 2 USB(and not just 1 like Ioriginally thought). Another niceaddition to this laptop that I have yet to see with other ultra portables isthat Dell includes an eSata optical drive(CD-RW/DVD-ROM by default). It’s your standard size self-powered opticaldrive, but it is nice that it is included(and interesting that it’s eSata asopposed to USB) and it even comes with a carrying case(the charger in thepicture below is for the laptop, not the optical drive).

Performance

For being a an ultraportable and ultra low voltageprocessor, this laptop is a great performer.

Battery:

Battery life was a tadlower than I was expecting, being it is a low voltage processor, smallerscreen, and SSD, but considering it’s small size yet respectable performance, Icould live with it(but of course one could lower the brightness, turn ofbluetooth and/or wifi, etc

Screen:

The screen/lid itself is rather thin and the hinges aresturdy, all metal, but with the lid closed it does have a little play in thatif I were to hold the laptop upside down, the lid will open about 1/4 of aninch.

The viewing angles also weren’t quite what I would considergreat. I found myself having to keeplooking at the screen dead in the center otherwise I’d notice some washing outat at the edges of the screen. However, the wide range of brightness levels was large, and in reality you could probablyset it at 4/8 and it would be just fine(as opposed to 6/8 that I used for mybattery tests)

However, I did enjoy the fact that this does not have aglossy screen, rather it is matte!(though, this is of course just my personalpreference!)

Final Thoughts:

All in all, with all things considered, when compared toother laptops of it’s class. I would say that this ultra portable laptop ranksnear the top of the lists. I think whatwould really let this laptop outshine others in it’s class would be the price whichcomes with nice features.

Would I recommend buying it? If you are absolutely trying to get best performance+ smallest size+smallest budget, sure you can go with the e4200. However, while I am currentlyplaying around with the Dell Latitude E4300(13.3”), I would say for spendingthe same amount that an E4200 would cost and only adding about a pound inweight(if you are okay with that), I’d get the E4300.