The battery is easily replaced

The battery is easily replaced

Welcome to a laptop battery specialist of the dell laptop battery

Being a relatively large notebook, you would expect the E5530 to be brimming with ports. However, the liberal spacing of these ports around the chassis edge makes the complement look a little more meagre than it actually is. Somewhat unusually, the power connection is on the left rear corner, and the Ethernet port on the right rear corner, with a USB 2.0 port alongside at the back of the machine. On the left can be found full-sized HDMI, plus a USB 3.0/eSATA combo port, a second USB 3.0 port, a SD card reader, and an ExpressCard/54 slot for expansion.

A clever soul at Dell with battery like Dell Studio 1737 battery, Dell 312-0712 battery, Dell Inspiron 1410 battery, Dell Vostro A860 battery, Dell Vostro 1088 battery, Dell Studio 1436 battery, Dell WT873 battery, Dell Studio 1435 battery, Dell Inspiron 1545 battery, Dell 451-10690 battery, Dell Inspiron 910 battery, Dell Vostro A90N battery has turned the plastic spacer filling the ExpressCard slot into a small ruler, wire diameter measurement tool, and letter opener. This is maybe not an essential feature, given that the ruler is only 2in long, but it shows an amusing level of design imagination. It's also worth noting that the ExpressCard slot can be specified as a SmartCard reader instead if required.

The right-hand side is home to the aforementioned optical drive, another USB 2.0 port, and VGA connectivity. Strangely, there is just a headphone/microphone combo port, when there would easily have been space for separate audio connections. Wireless networking includes 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. There are also mobile broadband options for £115.20 extra (inc VAT). These include HSPA+ or Gobi 3000 and EVDO-HSPA, depending on your travelling needs. There's even a modem option, for just £12 extra.

With its midrange Core i5, the E5530's performance is unsurprisingly midrange as well. The result of 3.1 in Cinebench R11.5's rendering test is on par with what we would expect from this processor, as is the OpenGL result of 13.77 for Intel HD 4000 graphics. The 3DMark06 and 3DMark11 results of 4,382 and 620 respectively show that this notebook could throw its hand to the odd game-related task, but is no entertainment special - this is a Latitude after all, not a notebook from the Inspiron XPS range.

The battery lasted 113 minutes in our intensive rundown test, which stresses processor and graphics as much as possible until the power gives out. This is a mediocre result, placing the E5530 somewhere between pure desktop replacements like Toshiba's Satellite L855-118 and true road warriors like HP's Folio 13. You will be able to watch a movie or two on a journey, or do more than half a day's work, but not a full day on the road. However, this is with the standard 60Wh battery. There are also 87 and 97Wh options, which should extend endurance by as much as 50 per cent. The battery is easily replaced, so a second unit would also be an option.

Dells's Latitude E5530 Advanced is a solid multi-purpose portable. It offers a decent level of performance for a reasonable price, although if you do plan to work away from the power socket for extended periods, one of the larger units or a second battery would be a necessity. And if you need a mobile workstation or a portable for occasional family entertainment, a similarly sized notebook with discrete graphics would be a better choice.