Dell Latitude E4000 to chase Air, X300
Dell’s Latitude E4000 comes to the field covered by Apple’s MacBook Air and Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300. While both the E4200 and E4300 will offer LED-backlit, 12-inch displays, the E4200 will measure between 0.6 and 0.8 inches thick and will weigh just 2.2 versus the 3 of its challengers. The E4200 will require either a 32GB or 64GB solid-state drive instead of a conventional hard disk. The E4300 will be a full system slightly over one inch thick but will have the option of a regular hard disk as well as a sharper, 1440×900 display (yei!) and a bay to fit either an optical drive or extended battery. Faster processors will also be optional and are likely to involve regular low-voltage Core 2 Duos versus ultra-low voltage chips for the E4200.
Both models will use the new DisplayPort standard for video output and should support DDR3 memory, the updated version of Intel’s 1GB Turbo Memory flash cache, external SATA, and an ExpressCard/34 slot. Both are due in September and launching in time with the Centrino 2 platform.