Yes, you can get about 8 hours or so out of the big battery. Would
recommend it. Got the standard charger with the laptop, I think. Do
the chargers look any different?
Will send along the biz support phone number to you. Via your
customer number, Dell can tell whether it's a business or
consumer. I'd say that I was a computer consultant to get the biz
account.--Matthew Chao
At 04:10 PM 1/21/2013, Chip Orange wrote:
Thanks Matthew; do you call a different number for business support at Dell?
I haven't needed any yet, but how could you get better support unless at
some point you get it some different way?
Oh btw, I gave the battery life incorrectly; I see 5 hours left at its at
56%, so I'm guessing more like 10 hours total life, especially after
speaking with Alan Paginelli who has a similar laptop and is getting 10
hours.
Chip
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Chao [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 4:04 PM
To: Chip Orange; [email protected]
Subject: Re: ot: a nice laptop
Hi, Chip. Bought the same laptop, slightly differently configured, with
Win7 64-bit. So, far, like the laptop a lot. Besides, you get better
support with business-oriented laptops. Don't buy consumer-grade; you'll
get lousy support and wait forever when you have a tech support
call.--Matthew Chao
At 02:06 PM 1/21/2013, Chip Orange wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>I bought myself a new laptop a few weeks back, and while I know no one
>ever says "don't buy what I just bought . it's terrible!", I thought to
>share what I found in case anyone was looking for the same type of item.
>
>I wanted a powerful fast laptop with a large comfortable keyboard, and
>if possible, a numeric keypad built-in. I didn't want to spend a lot
>of money on a touch-screen or a high-resolution tablet that I couldn't
>use; and I didn't want it to be too heavy to easily carry around.
>
>I inlisted the help of some sighted relatives, and finally decided on a
>Dell E6530 (the primary reason was that their laptops were very
>configurable when you ordered one; you had an enormous number of options).
>
>To get one which had more emphasis on
>capabilities, and less emphasis on touch screens and gaming features I
>had to order from the Dell Small Business collection. This is
>important to know if you want the same type of notebook/laptop; small
>business usually means less trendy graphics options.
>
>I got a 15 inch screen, but with a large comfortable keyboard which has
>a numeric keypad, and a full set of modifier keys on both sides of the
>spacebar (the one key which is missing is the "applications key",
>usually found to the right of the space bar, it can be used to bring up
>a context menu, the same as shift-F10).
>
>It has a full set of function keys (which are configured as function
>keys and not preset to execute various programs), a set of "six pack"
>and arrow keys, and buttons for mute and volume controls.
>
>I chose the 32-bit form of Windows 7 (you had your choice of Win 7 or
>8, and 32 or 64 bit; my reading tells me the extra memory usable by the
>64 bit version of windows is rarely a big enhancement, while the
>troubles and incompatibilities of the 64-bit requirements can be quite
>aggravating; in any case, you can have it your way whatever you want).
>
>I chose an I7 dual-core processor (next to their best; their best being
>a quad-core, but which automatically upgraded the graphics card and the
>resolution of the monitor, throwing a lot of money into the graphics
>options). The performance numbers for the process and memory are all
>around 7.2 and 7.6. I chose a hybrid hard drive (a standard hard drive
>which has a very very large memory cache to enhance speed and reduce
>power consumption by allowing the drive to spin down). You also have
>choices for just a traditional hard drive of different sizes or a SD
>hard drive (which is small, but which is memory only).
>
>It has a bay for removable devices where I keep the CD/DVD RW device
>mostly, but if you buy other devices you can pop out the optical device
>and put in something else (another battery, I'm not sure what all they
>sell for the bay).
>
>It weighs around 5 pounds, and I got the 9-cell extended battery, which
>gives me around 5 hours (or sometimes more) of operating time. You
>need to buy a larger capacity charger when you buy the extended
>battery, because it has a feature where it can charge the battery to
>80% capacity in less than an hour.
>
> It's physically somewhat wider than my
> last 15 inch laptop due to the full-size keyboard.
>It's very cool when sitting on your lap.
>
>You can get a cell modem as an option, an SD card reader, a wireless
>link for the video to a monitor somewhere in the room, and of course
>various levels of WiFi and bluetooth. It also has several USB 2.0 and
>3.0 connectors.
>
>An unusual option I purchased is a docking station; it allows you to
>keep the power and any external video and USB and Ethernet devices
>plugged into the doc, and you can just lower your laptop into the dock
>and it can start using all of these without you having to fiddle with
>the connections (and the dock will accommodate the extended battery).
>The dock also comes with the larger capacity charger mentioned above.
>
>One unusual feature is the audio connector for a headset. It's a new
>standard in that it accepts a four connection 3.5 mm plug for a stereo
>headset with mike, but will also except a standard 3.5 mm stereo
>earphone connection (no mike). When I went looking on the internet, I
>had trouble finding a stereo headset with mike which had one of these
>new four connection 3.5mm plugs.
> There is no separate 3.5mm mike input, but you can buy an adapter
>from places like Radio Shack which gives you the separate mike and
>headphone jacks. I see a 2.5mm jack as well, which I think is for a
>cell type of headset connection, and another which I think is a mike
>input.
>
>The internal speakers are extremely good (and quite loud) as compared
>to my last laptop.
>
>There's also a mini-pci card slot, and an e-sata connector (for
>external disk drives I think). If you need to share with a sighted
>user they also offer this in a variety of screen sizes and resolutions,
>and a separate graphics card for anyone who wants "gaming level
>graphics".
>
>The price is so dependent on your choices for all of the options that
>it makes little sense to place any value on the number I finally paid
>(somewhere around $1400 I think); it's not going to be the cheapest
>notebook, but it can be configured to be anything you want, and it
>certainly is easy and comfortable to use. With that price I obviously
>chose every expensive option.
>
>Oh, BTW, Dell made a point of saying they gave you an option of having
>no extra software installed from third-parties by them (which I
>chose), and indeed, it came with no "shovelware" at all! Not one
>thing!
>
>Finally, I purchased a backpack carrying case from them instead of the
>traditional shoulder bag; I'm very impressed with the backpack, which
>has a lot of places for books and water-bottles and cell phones, not
>just the laptop (and is black with orange trim).
>
>Hth,
>
>Chip
>
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