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. 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. An on-off switch for the dual-band 802.11n Intel Centrino Wi-Fi adapter rounds out the external fixtures.

Inside, the 14-inch, 1366-by-768, widescreen LED-backlit display is almost blindingly bright. It's protected by a fairly thick bezel; the lid certainly feels as if it could take a fair amount of abuse. 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. 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. As usual, Dell equips its business notebooks with both joystick and touchpad cursor controls; both work fine, but I found the joystick somewhat mushy to use.

As a multimedia machine, the E6420 AGT is a mixed bag. The audio, while decent, is somewhat muted compared with that of the E5420--perhaps the extra armor on the E6420 AGT muffles the sound a bit. I like the integrated webcam, though: It captured good-looking high-def video, even in low-light situations, and Dell's Webcam Central utility offers a good array of controls for adjusting backlighting, brightness, contrast, color, and even gamma. It's a great tool for Skype video calls, recording video, or capturing snapshots (up to 1920 by 1080 resolution).

As usual with its business laptops, Dell keeps the software bundle simple. Aside from the usual Microsoft Office Starter Edition, you get basic versions of CyberLink PowerDVD and Roxio Creator Starter for use with the DVD burner, Dell's Backup and Recovery Manager, and Intel's security-management and antitheft utilities.

You can opt to reduce the price by going for a cheaper and less powerful CPU, less memory, or a conventional hard drive (which would be slower but larger than the solid-state drive in our test unit). Conversely, a discrete graphics card, a second hard drive (the laptop has a module to accommodate one), more memory, and other upgrades could make the E6420 AGT even more expensive.