Microsoft typically offer two Windows operating systems for the burgeoning netbook market.

Windows XP Home and  Windows Vista Business

Now getting Windows Vista Business on this generation of underpowered  netbooks is like going to a car dealer and asking for their slowest most expensive car.  It’s also going to be  painful to use.

Windows XP Home by all accounts runs pretty well but the gotcha is you cannot join Windows XP Home to any corporate environment that has a  Windows Server. Due to the inbuilt limitations of XP Home (that have been in place since XP’s launch in 2001).

So between this rock and hard place netbooks for now won’t be making much impact into the business world and this is just exactly what Microsoft wants.

They want to stave off the Linux onslaught so end users don’t get too comfortable with it, while at the same not eating into their core Windows business too much.

Well Dave Altavilla over at www.hothardware.com disassembled one and has posted video and pictures.

It’s pretty impressive how Dell crammed all that stuff in such a small box.

Link: http://www.hothardware.com/News/Weekend-Project-Dell-Studio-Hybrid-Disassembly/

It can be difficult to disseminate what the difference is between these two types of storage  technologies available on Dell Laptops.

Both the 32GB and 64GB are available as “Ultra Performance”

While the Larger 128gb is described as “Dell Mobility Solid State Drive”

So what is the difference between the two types?

Over on the Direct 2 Dell Blog they claim this about the Ultra Performance model.

“Our labs benchmarked this drive in a Latitude notebook and saw a 35 percent overall system performance increase over a standard 2.5-inch 5400rpm notebook hard drive using SYSmark ‘07.  That’s even more impressive when you realize that the difference between standard 5400 rpm and performance 7200rpm drives (in the same generation) is 10 percent on average.  And just for fun, we did a shootout between the new SSD and a few desktop drives and, well, let’s just say that the performance gap is becoming a thing of the past.  Preliminary tests showed that this drive outperformed a 10,000 RPM desktop drive in overall system performance!”

Link: Direct 2 Dell SSD

So it seems the larger capacity but less expensive 128gb drive is based on the slightly slower technology.  I could do with some definitive confirmation of this - please use the comments.

It’s a Size Thing

So why not save some money and get the 32gb and utilise other external storage?

That’s all well in good and may be “do-able” for an average user but over the life of the machine I want some future proofing. No one knows for example the footprint size of Windows 7.

This choice between performance and capacity is a hard one for the consumer.

If you have any links or additional information on this topic please use the comments.

It was quite difficult to choose between the E4200 and E4300.

My instinct said the E4200 but my wallet said the E4300. However when it comes to investing in my own business tools I trust my instinct over my wallet.

As I recommend equipment to clients it’s important that I am confident in my recommendations and if I am going to recommend the E4200 to other people the best way to do that with confidence is to actually own one.

The key area of contention was the cost implication of going high performance SSD on the E4200.

I decided to get off the fence on SSD Technology and I elected for the higher performing 64gb model over the higher capacity less expensive 128gb.

To ease that pain I have a ton of external storage options. 32gb USB Keys,  external host powered 320gb Hard Disks and of course the Internet. So I can live with relatively low capacity of 64gb but benefit from higher performance.

As the CPU, Bus Speed and Cache are all low power I am hoping that the high performance SSD will balance things out and I can have the best of both worlds small form factor and fast performance.

So far so good, so I placed the order but the delivery date is 22nd October ish. So about 5 weeks from now. I wish Dell would sell things they can ship within a reasonable time frame (a week for example).

I do have some hope that the E4200 is going to be a "great little machine". but the decision between the E4200 and E4300 wasn’t easy.

If you want to read my future coverage of the Dell Latitude E4200 bookmark this (link)

Updated 15:40)  Dell got in contact with me at lunchtime with a quote. Then a couple of hours later I was contacted by the Dell Channel Marketing Manager in response to the post below. So all my Partner Direct issues have been resolved. Thanks Guys.

Dell have announced they see a “Further Softening in Global End User Demand”. (Link)

So I was pretty surprised that I could not get in contact with anyone from Dell Partner Direct to give me a quote for these new Latitude E Series laptops.

Since Dell changed from having old fashioned account management I haven’t hooked up with my new account manager. So yesterday when I tried to register interest in a programme I am already enrolled in, I got nowhere.

I managed to log into the Dell Partner site and submit a request but as yet they have not contacted me.

A few hours later I contacted my old Account Manager and asked her to get one of the Partner Direct team to contact me. She CC’ ed me in on an email asking them to do so.

A day later still nothing.

So far for being enrolled in the Dell Partner Direct Programme all I have to show for it is a nice folder and some plastic pens with Dell written on them.

Through all these layers of CRM they can’t seem to respond to a customer who wants to spend money.

Meanwhile maybe the guys leaving comments over at engadget are right. Maybe the the E4200 is priced out of whack and Lenovo would be better value for money.

Engadget Comments Link

I wish I was posting about how excited I was about getting a new laptop today instead as a Dell customer feeling ignored.