Stuart Kennedy | August 26, 2008
DELL's new E6400 ATG ruggedised notebook certainly looks like it was dressed from the Yakka rack.
Dell's E6400 sports a choice of high-brightness screens for outside work
This is a blokey-looking laptop. There are no cute curves on the all-terrain-grade Dell, it's all squared-off corners with the screen ensconced in a gnarly, black, scuff-resistant mag alloy cover.
The base is also mag alloy but despite the exotic metals this machine weighs a tonne - or 3kg to be precise.
Open it up and it's all black with a pair of large speakers book-ending the keyboard, a five-button touchpad backed up by a thumbstick and smartcard scanner and fingerprint reader for security.
Dell claims the ATG can take a 76cm drop and has been tested to military standards (milspec 810-F) for dust, vibration, humidity and altitude.
In the spirit of hard knocks, we dropped the Dell from about that height and while it survived, a plastic trim panel on the keyboard did need to be pushed back in.
Arrayed around the Dell's side skirts are all the business-grade accoutrements, including three USB ports, an eSATA port, quick-release DVD burner, Firewire port, VGA out and a Display Port, SD card reader, modem and ethernet ports.
There's a 3G SIM slot under the battery for broadband on the go and a webcam atop the screen.
The review machine packed 2GB of memory with an Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 2.5GHz CPU and a solid state 60GB drive for hard-knock computing.
Performance under Vista Business was snappy using desktop applications, and closet gamers can take heart from the new DX10-compatible Intel Series 4 chipset, which scored a respectable 3.8 for games graphics in the Windows Experience Index. The ATG sports a choice of high-brightness screens for outside work. Both are 1280 by 800 resolution 14.1in numbers, but one is a touchscreen for gloves-on operation.
The touchscreen boasts 650-nit brightness (most LCDs are in the 200 to 400-nit range) while the review unit came with the standard no-touch 750-nit screen. We had no problems seeing the screen clearly in direct sunlight. Dell is pushing battery life with its new Latitudes and while the six-cell battery jutting out of the ATG's backside does nothing for its looks, it's there to boost endurance.
As a guide for real-world life away from a mains supply, we charged up the Dell, pulled its power plug, set the screen to maximum bright and played a movie for two hours.
That consumed about half the battery's charge.
SPECIFICATIONS
Features: Ruggedised case, 2GB RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5GHz cpu, 60GB solid state drive, 14in 750 nit brightness LCD screen
Price: $4512
More at: www.dell.com.au
Rating: 7.5/10