At just less than 6 pounds, the E6400 is a bit heavier than some other 14-inch laptops we’ve looked at recently, but the solid metal construction gives it an impressively dense feel, and feels like it could stand up to some serious road abuse.
They keyboard’s keys felt tight and responsive, and the keyboard didn’t flex under our fingers. The optional backlit keyboard is great, and we wish more laptops were available with backlit keyboards. Perhaps to assuage older business laptop users, there’s a ThinkPad-like trackpoint in the middle of the keyboard, along with a traditional three-button trackpoint control set above the regular touch pad(there are also regular left and right mouse buttons below the touch pad). We’re still convinced that trackpoints are a legacy product and about as useful to most people as a serial port, but someone must still be using them if Dell made sure to include it in the redesigned Latitude.
Our review unit included several business-friendly features, such as a Trusted Platform Module chip, a contactless Smart Card reader(which lets you just tap your card on the wrist rest, rather than sliding it into a slot), and a fingerprint reader . For many corporate IT departments, these are must-haves. Dell’s custom ControlPoint software widget offers a clean, simple one-stop interface for accessing security, power, and networking settings. Other business laptop makers such as Lenovo offer their own similar versions of catch-all administrative applications, and both the Dell and Lenovo versions are reasonable useful and easy to use.
The 14.1-inch wide-screen LCD offers a 1, 440x900-pixel native resolution, which is our preference for 14- and 15-inch screens. This is an LED-backlit display, which is thinner, lighter and uses less power than traditional laptop screens, but Dell also offers a non-LED 1, 280x800-pixel resolution option, which knocks off the price.