Dell Latitude E6410
rental/day: 128.21yuan   rental/week: 307.69yuan   rental/month: 384.62yuan	Processor	Core I5-520M,2.4GHz
	Memory	2GB DDR3 1333
	Hard Drive	250GB SATA7200
	Media Drive	DVD-RW
	Network Interface	1000M/802.11bgn
	Screen Size	14.1'LED
	Battery	6 Cell

The Dell Latitude E6410 is a true businessnotebook computer – and an unseemly quick one at that.

 In a worldfilling with slim and thin and curvy models, the DellLatitude E6410 has a square and solid build that wouldn’t have raised a browten or more years ago.

But we’re not going to knock the Dell’sutilitarian exterior. Such conservatism goes down well in business circleswe’re sure, and despite the rigid construction, it remains quite totable atjust under 2.3kg and 31mm thick. And those classic looks do have a certaintimeless cachet.

So the Dell Latitude E6410 is far from beingthe lightest or slimmest laptop on the market, especially when you rememberthat this is a 14in-screen model, yet one weighing more like a 15-incher. Butthere are reasons why you must overlook the four-square looks and less thansuperwaif trim.

In short: build quality, battery life,feature set and sheer performance all rank as highly commendable. Especiallythe performance.

Where most laptops have taken Apple’s leadand forsaken the manual lid catch, Dell insists on fastening the Dell LatitudeE6410’s top down with a firm press-to-release button. Mind, while that lidlooks like a serious slice of brushed alloy, be aware that it’s a pretend metalfinish formed from painted plastic.

There’s nothing fake about the Dell LatitudeE6410's display though, in our sample’s case a 1440x900 LED-backlit with a mattanti-glare finish (1280x800 also available). This is a superb screen, shamingthat found on costlier models on rivals with its crisp text definition, highmaximum brightness level and good colour spread. 

And crucially – reflection-free and easy onthe eyes in all lighting conditions, along with usable off-axis viewing angles.

The Dell Latitude E6410's keyboard isn’t badeither, a traditional rather than Scrabble-tile type, feeling reasonably solidwith little in the way of centre flex. It’s backlit too, with only a littlewhite-light bleed from between the tessellated keys.

In the middle sits a trackpoint sticksteerer, with accompanying click keys between keyboard and regular trackpad.The latter is small but precise in its sensing, with soft clicking buttons thatdon’t require too much thumb contortion.

So how does the Dell Latitude E6410 perform?It’s not merely fast – it’s blindlingly fast. But before we dwell on labbenchmarks, it’s worth noting the useful range of ports lined along its fouredges.

Like many other Dell machines, the DellLatitude E6410 forsakes DVI and HDMI digital video outputs, in favour of thecomparable DisplayPort connector. VGA is still there of course, for oldprojectors. Three USB 2.0 ports are joined by a combo eSATA/USB, while FireWireis supported on the right side with a mini 1394a port.

To its right is a DVD±RW drive that can beeasily slid from the chassis.

Our sample of Dell Latitude E6410 came with asix-cell removable battery which slotted in neatly without stretching from therear like a hidden pier. In the MobileMark 2007 Productivuty test, we saw a runtimeof 6 hours 21 minutes, which is commendable in itself; but all the moreimpressive when you realise what CPU drives this notebook.

We saw three processor options on Dell’s sitewhen we last checked: either an Intel Core i5-520M (2.4GHz), Core i5-540M(2.53GHz), or Intel Core i7-620M running at 2.66GHz.

With the nippiest processor on-board, theDell Latitude E6410 reaped a real-life test score in WorldBench 6 of 127points, making it the fastest laptop we’ve ever seen – and by a comfortablelead.

To give some context, until last yearpractically no laptops exceed 100-point WorldBench 6 scores, while evenperformance-tuned desktop PCs we see in our monthly sub-￡750 charts tend to getscores ‘only’ in the 120-130 bracket.

Apple’s top-spec MacBook Pro 15inwith the same processor and a hard disk was the previous fastest notebook we’veseen, scoring 115 points in WorldBench 6.

The Dell Latitude E6410 was doubtless helpedalong to this jaw-dropping turn of speed by the use of a solid-state drive forstorage. There are 7200rpm hard disk versions offered too, but this reviewsample had 256GB of Samsung SSD to make it fly.

Dazzling graphics are not often required forpinstriped users, although if you stretch the ‘business laptop’ definition toinclude scientific or lab use there’s more likely to be applications for slick3D rendering. Dell offers a version of the Latitude E6410 with an nVidia NVS3100M  graphics card with 512MB of RAM.

We tried the Dell Latitude E6410 notebookwith just the integrated Intel graphics though, which proved capable of playingFEAR at an average framerate of 17fps at Max detail settings, rising to 28fpsat High and 48fps at Medium.