Dell Latitude E6430S Business Grade Laptop

If you’re considering the Dell Latitude E6430S, you’re not looking to buy it for LAN parties. Good business system can handle a little light-duty gaming, though, so we put it through a gaming benchmark to see what it can do.

Far Cry 2 DirectX Gaming Performance

Ubisoft’s famous FPS Far Cry 2 has been around for awhile, but it remains a relatively graphics-intensive game and a good one for testing a system’s 3D chops. We ran the “Ranch” demo at 1024 x 768, keeping all settings at high and disabling anti-aliasing.

The E6430S landed right about where we expected it to. The Intel HD 4000 graphics aren’t bad for mobile or casual gaming, and if you’re just killing time while traveling, the system likely has all the gaming power you’ll need.

Battery Eater Pro Stress Test Power Performance

We tested the Dell Latitude E6430S with Battery Eater Pro with the laptop's WiFi on and the screen brightness set at 50%. Battery Eater Pro is a program that stresses the CPU, GPU, and storage drive until the laptop completely runs out of juice. It approximates the battery life you'll see when performing light and medium-duty tasks for an extended period without an AC adapter.

Battery life is particularly important for business users, which is why Dell packed a 65Whr, 6-cell battery into our review model of the E6430S. As we noted earlier, the battery is oversized, extending behind the laptop. It's not pretty and makes the laptop a little more unwieldy, but if unthethered mobility is what you need, an extended battery is the way to go.