Dell launches new Latitude notebook line 12 August, 2008 By Liam Lahey

Citing collaboration with nearly 4,000 IT professionals and end users, company officials announced the new Latitudes and Precision mobile workstations that range from the lightest ultra-portable in the company's history to the most powerful.

Moreover, the new Latitude systems are said to provide breakthrough battery life (up to 19 hours on a single charge) as well as a new design and style that includes giving users a choice of five colours to select as a means of personalizing the devices.

"This is a very significant launch for our customers and for Dell," said Paul Cooper, country manager, Dell Canada. "The reality is these are quite revolutionary products and a lot of change has occurred. With this change you'll find the way in which people use mobile computing will change and evolve.

"We're trying very hard to listen to our customers . . . one thing they've told us consistently they're looking for from Dell and other IT providers in the marketplace is help simplifying information technology."

Dell's re-engineered Latitude laptop lineup includes the E4200, a 12.1-inch laptop that starts at 2.2-lbs., the 13.3-inch E4300 laptop with a starting weight of 3.3-lbs. Both were designed for road warriors and executives who demand maximum performance and light weight, the systems would be available in the coming weeks, officials said.

For mainstream users, the Latitude E6400 and E6500 are 14.1- and 15.4-inch laptops that start at $1,159 and $1,189 respectively. The Latitude E5400, a 14.1-inch laptop, starts at $859, and the E5500 laptop, a 15.4-inch laptop starts at $879. The semi-rugged Latitude E6400 ATG is a 14.1-inch laptop that starts at $2,449 is built and tested to meet U.S. Military 810F standards for dust, vibration and humidity.

Dell will also offer colours for the first time on its' Latitude laptops. In addition to Mica-Brushed Metal, the Latitude E4200, E4300, E6400 and E6500 laptops will be available in Regatta Blue, Regal Red and Quartz Pink (E4200 only) in the coming weeks. The E5400 and E5000 laptops are available in Matte Black.

"The new Latitude laptops and Dell Precision mobile workstations represent the largest client product development effort in the history of Dell," said Jeff Clarke, senior vice president, Dell Product Group. "We've invested more than 1 million engineering hours and the result is a family of head-turning products that are as solid on the inside as on the outside, with features that enable improved security, manageability and productivity."

Dell's new Latitude laptops feature: all-day computing on the E6400 laptop with breakthrough battery life of up to 19 hours; full-frame magnesium alloy construction and all-metal hinges; backlit keyboards; ease of use with ControlPoint to centralize control of user settings for power management, connectivity configurations and security management in a single application; ControlVault solution for intelligent security sub-processors with embedded non-volatile storage that centralizes and helps protect user credentials and security keys in a single hardened security "vault" away from the systems main drive; The E6500 is the only laptop with both a contact-less Smart Card reader and a fingerprint reader that complies with U.S. Federal Information Processing Standards. All models are built with compatible peripherals, adapters, docking and robust manageability features across the entire portfolio.

The company also previewed Dell Latitude ON, a new technology that will enable near-instant access to e-mail, calendar, attachments, contacts and the Web without booting into the system's main operating system (OS). Expected in the coming months on the Latitude E4200 and E4300 laptops, Dell Latitude ON uses a dedicated low-voltage sub-processor and OS that can enable multi-day battery life.

Dell also unveiled a new line of ISV-certified Precision mobile workstations targeted at performance-oriented customers in the engineering, media, entertainment and biosciences industries: Precision M4400 -- a 15.4-inch mobile workstation features leading-edge graphics and supports up to 8 GB of RAM and the Precision M2400 -- weighing 4.77-lbs., it is the company's lightest mobile workstation is a 14.1-inch system.

"I'm pretty sure this one fits inside an envelope too," Clarke quipped.

The company also introduced a 17-inch mobile workstation concept that revolutionizes mobile performance. Housed in an orange anodized aluminum chassis, it supports up to 16 GB of RAM, a 1 GB graphics card, upcoming quad-core processors and up to a terabyte of storage on two drives. This doubles the amount of memory and processor cores, and triples the storage available on Lenovo and HP mobile workstations

The new Latitude mainstream and ultra-portable laptops, as well as Dell Precision mobile workstations, are available with Energy Star 4.0 compliant configurations and meet EPEAT "Gold" rated configurations. The Latitude E4200 laptop is Dell's first notebook that offers a motherboard containing halogen-free laminates, as well as halogen-free chassis plastics and fan housings. The ultra-portable laptop also ships in packaging that is up to 99 per cent recyclable by weight.

"The evolution of our family of products, from the D-Series to E-Series, these are real milestones in terms of our product development and where we change the entire platform and create the foundation for this platform over the next three to five years," Cooper added. "We're making sure these products are completely green and use the least amount of power and have the smallest impact on the environment."

All of the new products are also available with Dell's ProSupport Mobility Services, a suite of modular services that help companies protect assets and data. To protect confidential company information, Dell can also automate data encryption on all laptops and centrally manage company-defined security policies in a way that is transparent to the end user. Dell's Desktop Manager service allows IT administrators to track dispersed systems, distribute software, manage patches and enforce IT policies.

Dell also launched a community site called Digital Nomads (www.digitalnomads.com) designed to bring users together to communicate, share ideas, tips, tricks and best practices.