In spite of the comparably second-tier materials, the most important features of the Latitude construction are still present—namely, the impressive solidity, which leaves little doubt that this notebook should stand up under somewhat heavy use.

This defines the service level standards you can expect in terms of the quality of the products we supply and the support service level standards we guarantee. Get a comprehensive look at your chosen laptop and see if this is the one that will best suit your needs. The logical trade-off of such an arrangement, of course, is that the ports are also somewhat closely-spaced, meaning that the insertion of a relatively large USB adapter could block the connection of another adjacent device. This leaves very little doubt that moving from a Sandy Bridge to an Ivy Bridge chipset will improve your graphical performance.The Latitude E5530 checks nearly all of the boxes defining a great business notebook: fantastic keyboard and touchpad, excellent battery life, uncompromising performance, and durability where it counts. It’s perhaps most similar to the Lenovo ThinkPad L530 configuration we recently reviewed, packing the same CPU along with closely-matched specs in other regards as well.

In this case, there is plenty of room for a standard drive, but there is certainly nothing wrong with a smaller drive in either application. Perhaps the two most interesting tests, however, are the more realistic real-world battery test and DVD playback test.glossy) are certainly the most important factors in outdoor notebook usability, though a strong contrast ratio also certainly helps.

Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List. These warranties replace all other warranties, expressed or implied including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. A Qualified Vendor List (QVL) is a list supplied by a system or motherboard manufacturer of parts tested and confirmed by that manufacturer to work in their hardware.

The business notebook market is a very competitive space occupied by other strong contenders such as Lenovo’s ThinkPad T530 and Samsung’s Series 6 machines—and, of course, even Dell’s own high-end E6530 (review forthcoming). The two small speakers are located on the bottom-front of the notebook; it’s essentially the same audio system that nearly every Latitude has seen for the past few years.

Draped in a Tri-Metal casing, the Latitude E5530's protective shell consists of a brushed aluminum lid, steel hinges, magnesium alloy internal frames and a zinc alloy latch that reminds us of an old-fashioned metal lunch pail. Driver and operating system DVDs are optional extras configurable with the system for a nominal charge. The Wi-Fi adapter, while normally a prime suspect in such situations, appeared to have no bearing on the situation. Fortunately, the display lid is still aluminum-backed and the machine nonetheless feels sturdy in spite of this. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties so this limitation may not apply.It features a phenomenal backlit keyboard and comfortable touchpad to compliment a better-than-average matte LCD panel. The two existing available docking stations (with which the Latitude E5530 is backwards-compatible) provide for effortless expandability. The synthetic GPU benchmarks are equally interesting in this case, though not necessarily as convincing. All of our equipment goes through a stringent testing, quality control and cosmetic grading process. However, this is relatively unlikely thanks to the rear USB port (which is mostly isolated from everything else), which could easily be used to connect any large flash drives or other obstructive devices.