Digital Archaeology: Dell Latitude E5500

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(Edited)

The Latitude line has traditionally been Dell's business line of laptops with the Inspiron line targeted towards the home market. The Latitude E5500, or at least this one, features a Core 2 Duo T7250 CPU @ 2 GHz and Intel Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics. Highlights include:

  • CPU: Core 2 Duo T7250 @ 2 GHz
  • Memory: 4 GB DDR2 @ 800 MHz
  • Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 4500MHD

More a more complete hardware inventory, check out the output of HardInfo.



Like most laptop models, this one was available in a wide variety of configurations though they all would have had a Core 2 Duo variant of some kind. At the time it was released, this would have been a midrange configuration and it probably shipped with 2 GB of RAM and was upgraded later to 4 GB. This brings up perhaps the biggest limitation of this laptop. While it has a 64-bit CPU, it is still restricted to a maximum of 4 GB of RAM.

The fact that this laptop uses an integrated Intel graphics solution rules it out for gaming, at least for games that were coming out at the time this laptop was relevant.





However, in my opinion at least, the Latitudes of this era hold up better than the Inspirons in terms of styling. This model is pretty simple with its plain matte black look in heavy duty plastic.

There seems to have been a couple of different keyboard designs. One includes a trackpoint and the extra mouse buttons to go with it while the other only includes a trackpad. Mine only has the trackpad. One nice thing about this laptop is the variety of ports it has. It still has an optical drive as well.

As far as contemporary use, I think Windows 10 has become too much of a memory hog over the years with subsequent updates to really be reasonable to use with only 4 GB. It works somewhat better with Linux though as long as you don't go too crazy with opening tons of browser tabs. The 2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor is really still plenty fast enough for any typical office tasks and basic web browsing.

Whenever I have this laptop turned on, it is of course running BOINC and participating in various projects. Having a 64-bit processor and running Linux, it can do work for all of the projects I participate in including Einstein@home, Milkyway@home, World Community Grid, Rosetta@home, Universe@home and Asteroids@home. You can see how it is doing overall at FreeDC.

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling.
Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Eruption by Michael Crichton and James Patterson.


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You should have put the year this laptop came into the market. I used Inspiron laptops but when I got a propper job, I switched to Lenovo Thinkpad.
I bought an emergency laptop and was a Dell, last year. I honestly appreciate all the hardware I've got, but have no comments of one against the other.
The best laptop that I can say I had. Was a System 76 laptop which after 10 years I still use. Mostly because of the files it has, but also because I've never had an issue with it.

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The Latitude E5500 was released in 2008. Dell quality has varied a lot over the years depending on the time period and model. There are some older XPS machines I really liked and some of the Precision models have been very good over the years (though not all of them). I've never been as big of a fan of the Inspiron and Latitude lines. Of course, dell has changed their naming scheme to where you can't tell much about them from the model name. Seems dumb to me but I'm not in marketing. My current favorite laptop is an Alienware model I got new about 6 years ago. It's definitely not for someone looking for something small, thin, and light though.

I know System 76 was known for shipping Linux based laptops. Most other vendors don't do that or only do so on a limited basis. For instance, some of Dell's business models have offered Linux as an option over the years. I might consider a System 76 the next time I buy a laptop but that probably won't be any time soon. I'm content with using older machines most of the time these days.

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I always felt Dell laptops better compared to Compaq and HP, but not as good as Lenovo or Apple. That said, I think it offered the best price/quality for a long time.

I've always been a software guy, not much focused in hardware, but the hardware marketing was there, wherever it was on the processor, the screen or bus speed. I remember sites like FutureMark and AnandTech pushing some products on the latest hardware.

But my focus was mostly on Linux Hardware and Linux development. Even now, I'm more excited about the Raspberry Pi and RISC-V than whatever AI tech is being integrated on the latest processors.

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