The keyboard, like the one on the E5420, is great: Keys are nicely sized and slightly sculpted, with good travel and a matte surface that discourages inadvertent sliding. The keyboard boasts a backlight with user-adjustable brightness that comes on when you touch a key, and turns off to save power after a minute or so of inactivity. It’s protected by a fairly thick bezel the lid certainly feels as if it could take a fair amount of abuse. Inside, the 14-inch, 1366-by-768, widescreen LED-backlit display is almost blindingly bright. An on-off switch for the dual-band 802.11n Intel Centrino Wi-Fi adapter rounds out the external fixtures.
An unusual option that didn’t come with our test unit but might help you deal with the laptop’s weight is a $50 carrying handle that snaps into holes on the bottom of the front edge, which when not in use are also protected with rubber covers. The E6420 ATG also offers a 54mm ExpressCard slot (which sits on top of its DVD burner on the right edge toward the front), a SmartCard slot on the left edge, and an SD Card slot on the front edge. On the right edge are three USB 2.0 ports (including one that also supports eSATA), and around its corner on the back edge are HDMI and dial-up modem ports (our test unit did not come with the latter). On the left edge you’ll find a USB 2.0 port, a VGA-out, and a combo headphone/mic jack around the corner on the back is an ethernet port.
Other features designed to minimize wear and tear include flip-down port covers cut out of heavy, rubbery protective bumpers on both back corners. Aside from the weight, you can’t help but notice its supersturdy construction, including a gray anodized-aluminum plate (with the Dell logo) set into the darker gray magnesium-alloy edges of the case. The E6420 ATG’s road-readiness is immediately apparent when you pick it up. I might not want to lug this hefty powerhouse through an airport, but I could easily see it as my dream date on the passenger seat of a car during a long business road trip. I thought the E5420’s 9.5 hours of battery life was impressive until I saw the E6420 ATG’s result: It ran for 11 hours, 18 minutes. On battery life, however, the E6420 ATG rose straight to the top of the class.
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