Dell Latitude E4200 Notebook PC Review

Dell's new Latitude E4200 might look like a portable DVD player, but it is actually a full-fledged PC. This tiny little machine features a solid state drive and I think it was built to complete with Apple's similar line of MacBook computers. Unfortunately, this Dell costs more and has less features than the Apple, plus it seems a little on the flimsy side.

As of this writing, Dell is making this PC available with either Vista or XP, which is very cool. It comes standard with 2 gigs of RAM, but you can bump it up to 3 gigs for an extra $50. I was very glad to see that Dell didn't skimp on memory since it is so cheap these days. Processor options are limited to either a 1.2 or 1.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo ULV, but that is plenty of power for basic online work or word processing. Don't buy this expecting to have a portable gaming machine unless you just play old stuff.

I was not very impressed by the 12.1 widescreen display on this PC. For starters, it has a bluish hue that I could not make go away. The screen itself is pretty sharp and bright, though. Dell did not bother to put a latch to hold the screen down, which I think is a bad design move and will invite trouble later on. When you open and close the lid, you can feel it twist and bend and sometimes the LCD display shows that pulsating color effect like when you press on the screen. The whole thing seems way too flimsy.

Because of its small size, there is no internal CD/DVD drive built into this PC. Instead, it comes with an external drive that connects via an eSATA port on the side. While Dell was nice enough to include this with the PC, the lack of an internal drive greatly reduces portability when you want to watch a movie on this computer. I suppose you could rig up some Velcro to make the drive stick to the back of the monitor, but that would look pretty stupid. The built-in speakers on this thing sound like crap, so you'll want to use headphones for music or movies, anyway.

Two things that did really impress me about this computer were the hard drive and the keyboard. The hard drive is solid state, like a flash drive, and comes in 64 or 128 GB sizes. By going solid state instead of the traditional mechanical drive, it cuts down on noise and increased portability. I think solid state drives are the future of computers and it is cool to see them finally showing up in machines. The keyboard was impressive despite its very small size, and I found it easy and comfortable to use, although a bit noisy.

Due to its small size, ports are pretty limited on this PC. It only has one USB port! Can you believe it? If you want to use more than one USB device, you're going to need to buy a hub. It does have a built-in Ethernet port and buttons for turning off BlueTooth and Wireless networking, which is nice. There's also an SD card slot for making digital media transfers easier. A VGA port is available for connecting this PC to a larger monitor, but that's standard equipment on most notebook computers.

You'd think with this computer being so compact that it would be quiet, but such is not the case. The whole time it is on, the fans run full blast to port warm air out the left side of the base. Even with the computer sitting idle, the fans never let up, and they weren't all that quiet. This is not really a noisy machine, but in a quiet environment those little fans are quite audible.

Even though this computer does seem kind of flimsy, Dell backs it with a 3 year warranty. I was really surprised to see that, since most PC's come with either a 90 day or one year warranty, at best. Dell's 3 year standard warranty does help to offset the cost, but this is still a pretty expensive machine with a base price of @ $2,000.

If you need something very portable and small, then you may consider the Dell Latitude E4200. Personally, I think it is overpriced for what it offers, and that you may be better off spending a little more to get a Panasonic Toughbook PC instead.