Dell's E4200, E4300 Air rivals go on sale

Dell today at last began shipping the Latitude E4200 and E4300, its most anticipated but also most delayed notebooks from its notebook launch last month. The 12-inch E4200 is considered the MacBook Air's rival at just under 0.8 inches thick and a 2.2-pound starting weight. In its finished version, it carries a 1.2GHz ultra low-voltage Core 2 Duo, 1GB of memory, GMA 4500MHD integrated video and the user's choice of both regular and high-speed 64GB solid-state drives as well as a 128GB option.

An external DVD drive is also bundled with the system at its $2,048 base price, which also limits it to 802.11g Wi-Fi and a light but low-capacity four-cell battery.

The E4300 in its production trim sits above both the Air and Lenovo's X300, with Dell instead opting to compete against small-but-fast 13.3-inch systems such as the Sony VAIO Z and VAIO SR. It similarly carries 1GB of RAM and GMA 4500MHD video but switches to Intel's new, small package 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo which runs at the full performance of normal mobile chips but in reduced space. The larger frame also finds room for an 80GB rotating hard drive and an internal DVD reader.

Dell's choice of larger, more readily available components helps drop the starting price of the E4300 down to $1,749.

Filed under: computers
Other story tags: Intel, Dell, Core 2, MacBook Air, Centrino 2, Latitude