Digital Home Thoughts: Dell Launches New Line of Latitude Business Notebooks, Claims 19 Hours of Battery Life

"Dell today launched the new Latitude line, ushering in a significant refresh of its business systems. The new models have a new streamlined design with the choice of multiple shell colors and take cues both from recent PC designs like the Studio as well as the MacBook Pro; the new systems now have backlit keyboards, a magnesium shell designed to be strong, and an extra-thin design. The mainstream models are the thinnest ever in the mid-size class, the Texas-based company claims, while its ultraportable E4200 model weighs as little as 2.2 pounds. The company also claims to have set a record for battery performance using a combination of proprietary software as well as Intel's Centrino 2 platform. The mid-grade Latitude E6400 with an extended 12-cell battery can last up to 19 hours on a single charge, according to Dell. A standard nine-cell battery also manages 10 hours. The company also promises a revamped power brick that can recover as much as 80 percent of the charge in one hour, and USB ports that will charge phones and other devices even when the system is completely turned off."

I tend not to pay that much attention to Dell's Latitude notebooks because they're usually as ugly as sin, but this new generation looks pretty good. The battery life claims of 19 hours really caught my eye - it seems that Dell is doing this with battery slice technology. Meaning these new notebooks have a power port on the bottom that a thin battery snaps into. This is similar to what HP has done with some of their business-class notebooks, but this technology has yet to make it into any consumer-grade notebook that I can think of. That's a real shame, because as a consumer I really care about battery life - and giving me a big-ass hump battery isn't much of a solution. After the break, there's a video with some Dell staffers talking about the new notebooks and how they compete against the Macbook Air and other ultra-portable laptops.