Just recently bought a used version of this laptop for ~160 with a core i5. Honestly this computer still has plenty of power for most users, and in some ways betters lots of other cheap laptops in this price range, however i will say the screen is mediocre at best. For work/productivity it is great, and the small size is nice.
Honestly these are great; I've had tons of 7x40 and 50s over the years at work (both 12.5 and 14"), and picked up a cheap 7470 touchscreen as a beater a few months ago. Great keyboards, solid screen (the touchscreen is a big upgrade but very glossy), and excellent build quality. I always undervolt mine so they've never really throttled or heated up too much on me. The U series is very low power and not comparable to the HQ or of course desktop variants - there's a minimal performance difference between i5 and i7 on these.
Big, big drawback vs modern machines though - no TB3. I have a newer Lenovo for work now and my wife has a 7280, and being able to share chargers and a one plug docking station are hard to go back from. With all of the power delivery battery packs and chargers now it is a big difference going back to a conventional proprietary adapter like my 7470 (and this one) needs to.
I think the expectations of certain people are different, here.
If you're looking for a blazingly fast and shiny new laptop for high-demand tasks or gaming or for bragging rights, this isn't it. Go wait for BF.
However, if you're looking for a driver laptop that's sturdy and can still get stuff done, these older laptops are perfect. And that's what is the slick deal here. A solid business-class laptop at this price point is generally hard to find, especially with these features and a more modern processor (don't even start with me: I still happily use my third-gen Core-i7 laptop - even over the 8th-gen i7 laptop I have - so sit down).
For comparison, I happen to have a university with a surplus equipment store nearby and most laptops there are third-gen Core-i's or less for in upwards of $200, so this is pretty darn slick, even compared to that.
The panels on all but the newest Latitude's are terrible. The laptops are workhorses, and will last years. However, even with IPS they often suffer from very low color accuracy and coverage.
This is because Latitude's are marketed to people in offices, and not consumer oriented. I had to (reluctantly) move away from my old one as watching movies on it was horrible.
I swear by Dell refurbs. I've owned 3 in my life, and they've all been top notch. My wife and I have our "daily use" machine; a refurb we bought 4 years ago for about $220. SSD, 4 GB of RAM and a 3rd gen i5 processor. It's a far cry from the specs of more current machines, but it's a little workhorse. It runs as well as the day it arrived.
The other two machines we've owned, we picked up for less than $250 each. We used them for years, and were able to resell them and make most of our money back.
All the refurbs we've owned have been business-class laptops, which means they're built like tanks. Our daily use machine, we've dropped several times. Despite numerous scuffs and scratches, it operates perfectly.
I have a 6200u acer.. it can stream x.264 4k.. provided the but rate is reasonable but FORGET about anything hevc!! All gaming at low settings if it works at all.. so kind of obsolete, except for basic video or netbook tasks. the 9th gen can handle hevc, but just barely... Better to look for amd gpus..
These are solid machines. I like the Dell Lattitudes. I bought my e7270 on ebay for 260.
Manufacturer in 2016, yeah it's older but it works well. Touchscreen, solid 4-5 hours on battery while on wifi (i'm sure I can squeeze more).
Most of the times, these refurbs are just business lease/models that just get sent back. Mine just had a bad speaker... $10 part to replace. Lattitude has parts for days on the internet. You can fix/replace almost everything on them. Drop test, yup, My fell off the table at a restaurant during a meeting. It's all good. A lot of these business class laptops get that'MIL-STD 810G tag, whether you're into it or, but i do think they're nicer than the consumer models. So the ThinkPads, Lattitudes and the type are nice. Plenty parts.
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I buy these types of laptops all the time. This is actually a very good deal, not the best, but GOOD. I've been able to get an i7 CPU for similar price.
However, touchscreen, 1080p, i5, 256 ssd. all for under $300?
This type of Dell goes for over $2,000.00 new - not to be compared with consumer class junk machines.
https://www.dellrefurbished.com/laptops?cjevent=d565de6f58b511ea83f100eb0a1c0e0f&dir=desc&filter_gra... [dellrefurbished.com]
This is a dual core 25watt cpu.. w/ a really old intel 520 gpu, and only hdmi 1.4.
Black friday we saw, $300 i5 10th gen quad core. g4 gpu, IPS, which is double the performance cpu and gpu of this laptop.
I'd say wait it out.
it's great yo know that a new 10th gen Intel Inspiron is posted right now for $499.
And don't tell me this $59 warranty is as good as Dell's normal NBD when the device is actually in Dell Support Life.
Big, big drawback vs modern machines though - no TB3. I have a newer Lenovo for work now and my wife has a 7280, and being able to share chargers and a one plug docking station are hard to go back from. With all of the power delivery battery packs and chargers now it is a big difference going back to a conventional proprietary adapter like my 7470 (and this one) needs to.
If you're looking for a blazingly fast and shiny new laptop for high-demand tasks or gaming or for bragging rights, this isn't it. Go wait for BF.
However, if you're looking for a driver laptop that's sturdy and can still get stuff done, these older laptops are perfect. And that's what is the slick deal here. A solid business-class laptop at this price point is generally hard to find, especially with these features and a more modern processor (don't even start with me: I still happily use my third-gen Core-i7 laptop - even over the 8th-gen i7 laptop I have - so sit down).
For comparison, I happen to have a university with a surplus equipment store nearby and most laptops there are third-gen Core-i's or less for in upwards of $200, so this is pretty darn slick, even compared to that.
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This is because Latitude's are marketed to people in offices, and not consumer oriented. I had to (reluctantly) move away from my old one as watching movies on it was horrible.
Really? What distro do you use? Haven't had a hack in years but loved mine.
The other two machines we've owned, we picked up for less than $250 each. We used them for years, and were able to resell them and make most of our money back.
All the refurbs we've owned have been business-class laptops, which means they're built like tanks. Our daily use machine, we've dropped several times. Despite numerous scuffs and scratches, it operates perfectly.
Manufacturer in 2016, yeah it's older but it works well. Touchscreen, solid 4-5 hours on battery while on wifi (i'm sure I can squeeze more).
Most of the times, these refurbs are just business lease/models that just get sent back. Mine just had a bad speaker... $10 part to replace. Lattitude has parts for days on the internet. You can fix/replace almost everything on them. Drop test, yup, My fell off the table at a restaurant during a meeting. It's all good. A lot of these business class laptops get that'MIL-STD 810G tag, whether you're into it or, but i do think they're nicer than the consumer models. So the ThinkPads, Lattitudes and the type are nice. Plenty parts.