E6420 Owner's Thread

[dezoris]

Well, I am back to do the initials on the E6420.
After the unboxing and testing for image building the machine is pretty much a mixed bag.

You can see in the comparison shots, Dell made a good effort in using high quality materials compared to the E6410. The problem is they did not use them to effectively enough to make the machine look any better.

First glance at the bottom of the 6420 it looks and feels like plastic right down to the texture. But clearly they knew this and stamped the Mg logo on it.
The top lid texture is very nice but again instead of making it a single slab it looks like a swappable cover, detracting from that sharp gun metal style.

The unit I have requires two hands to open the lid and the latch sticks badly.
Build quality is better than the E6410 all around but it certainly does not look it. It does not have that look it needs to separate it from the home user machines which is my largest complaint.

Also I don't know what happened to the power supply but if this is the new design but it certainly seems like they went back to the old C series style power supplies. I hope this is a mistake.

But regardless here is the initial batch of photos.

[dezoris]

You can see the build quality in these pictures.

[dezoris]

Here are more of the chassis

[dezoris]

Here is a partial tear down. Its not as easy to drop the back panel.
Hard disk is 4 screws and the back panel an additional 5 screws.

[dezoris]

More teardown pics

[dezoris]

You can see the speakers are back to the palmrest.

[dezoris]

Final compare to E6410

[dezoris]

In conclusion, the initial feeling is that the build quality and durability are much improved over the E6410, and that is the most important thing here. But I think they missed a major opportunity to really make this piece of hardware look as slick as it could have been. I am a huge fan of the M6500 design style and I think with just a little bit of tweaking making the lid a continuous gunmetal slab or even the aluminum silver of the surrounding metal the laptop would look very serious and sleek.

I also don't like the ring around the Dell logo, screams "home user."

The keyboard and palm rest is a large improvement so far and anyone coming from a 6410 will appreciate the larger touch pad.

16:9? Love it or hate it, its here to stay for a while.

So, in conclusion, the new design is a mixed bag you will likely either like it or just fall asleep looking at it and that's where Dell missed the boat on the design.

[5150cd]

Awesome, thanks for the mini review Dezoris, really appreciate it!

[dezoris]

Last two pictures, forgot to pull the keyboard.
Take it for what it is worth but its a lot more effort to pull it out compared to the E6410 and they went back to a ribbon cable to connect it.

The surrounding bezel will be easily broken when removing.
Four screws to secure the keyboard on top and two smaller ones on the bottom next to the docking port.
I can assume this was to curb keyboard flex, but I can barely see much difference both the e6410 and e6420 have deflection.