E5470: good laptop as a Hackintosh?

[Zia-Ur-Rehman]

I am thinking to buy this laptop for hackintosh.I will be using it as my daily driver .Is it a good laptop and could some one please tell me how is the trackpad and do the gestures work?

[ktbos]

I was holding off to see what others might have said but so you don't hang on too long @Zia-Ur-Rehman for any reply, here are my thoughts.  The E5470 is new to me and I'm not really a fan of trackpad gestures.  That's why I like that non-Apple-hardware has a a right button, for example.  So I'm not going to be able to answer that.  But I can tell you that this computer is pretty solidly built and allows for either an M.2 drive or a 2.5" SSD (depending on which it was ordered with originally or depending on what parts you get to change that after the fact).  Supposedly some of these were built with touchscreens but they have been rare enough to come on the eBay scene that I'm not sure how real they are.  There were 3 display resolution options - 1920x1080, 1600x900, and 1366x768.  The lowest resolution is pretty lame for a laptop unless you are going to be docking it most of the time.  The top resolution is really nice but on a 14" screen, it's pretty small.  And the 1600x900 doesn't come up on eBay often.  The backlit keyboard is a nice feature that I'd recommend. 

 

On the other hand, the E5570 gives you all the same benefit of the E5470 but in a bigger package.  Compared to the E5470, the E5570 gives you enough more display to make 1920x1080 fit well and gives you a keyboard with a numeric keypad section which I'm really enjoying.  If you choose the M.2 form factor for a drive on the E5570, you can even get a battery that's something like 50% larger (that fills the space that would otherwise go to a 2.5" SSD).  The replacement cost for those extra large batteries might not be worth it to you but the option is there. 

 

For either the E5470 or the E5570 (or probably any others in this series), beware of broken USB ports.  Dell's design for the port relied on solder for the USB 3 conductors to provide the physical resistance to the guts of the port.  So overuse or abuse of the port means broken USB 3 conductors - you end up with the plastic inside able to wiggle in and out which is a clear sign that the conductors are no longer conducting. 

 

Hopefully others who are using an E5470 daily (or an E5570) will weigh in here with thoughts on it for you.  And can maybe answer your multi-touch trackpad question.