Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 review: A nearly perfect combination of power and battery life - higginsbuttleace

Mark Hachman / IDG

At a Glint

Expert's Rating

Pros

Best-in-class public presentation
Battery life that equals a Qualcomm Snapdragon PC
Tight, hitherto with a 14-inch blind

Cons

Near $3,000 as reviewed

Our Finding of fact

Dell's Latitude 7400 2-in-1 offers leading-edge performance and true all-day bombardment life history, all within a compact (though pricy!) business notebook.

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$2802

If you've been curious about whether a long-life Qualcomm Snapdragon Personal computer is for you, Dingle would like a password. Dingle's new 14-inch Latitude 7400 2-in-1 achieves a just incredible 18 hours of battery life using a powerful Intel 8th-gen Whiskey Lake processor. Information technology too offers a full complement of ports and a slightly gimmicky feature article named ExpressSign-in (yes, information technology's rattling spelled that way).

As our review shows, Dell has designed a stylish business notebook optimized for life connected the roadworthy. Information technology's also optimized for IT rather than physical budgets, as our review articl unit clocked in at a whopping $2,800. Merely if you want a stage business laptop with completely-day shelling lifeand public presentation, the Dell Line of latitude 7400 2-in-1 delivers.

Dell Line of latitude 7400 2-in-1 basic specs

Other than a amazingly subpar webcam, Dell's Latitude 7400 2-in-1 is optimized for the road warrior: A compact form factor, 1080p display, and a solid barrage mean you'll be fit to oeuvre for hours.

Reveal: 14-inch (1080p) impact
Processor: Intel 1.9GHz Core i7-8665U vPro (Whiskey Lake)
Graphics: Intel UHD 620
Remembering: 8GB-16GB LPDDR3 (16GB as tested)
Storage: 128GB-2TB NVMe class 40 SSD (512GB as tested)
Ports: 2 USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C (Thunderbolt 3, Might Delivery/DisplayPort); Two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A; HDMI 1.4; microSD; optional microSIM WWAN
Camera: 720p HD Television camera (exploiter-facing); Windows Hello resourceful
Assault and battery: 52Wh, 78Wh (78Wh as tested)
Wireless: 802.11ac (2×2); Bluetooth
Operating system: Windows 10 Pro
Dimensions: 12.59 x 7.87 x 0.59 inches
Weight: 3.30 pounds, 4.08 pounds with charger (measured)
Color: Aluminum
Options: Fingerprint detector privileged power button; contact smartcard reader
Price: $2,802 (Dell.com) as designed; starts at $1,599

A robust, yet chunky establish

The Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 invades the long-battery-life territory defined by Lenovo and Qualcomm's power-sipping Snapdragon through complete brute force. Almost the entireness of our inspection building block was defined by its massive 78-Watt-hour battery, more twice the capacity of some competing laptops. That, and a power-sipping video display, serves as the Intel ecosystem's answer to what Qualcomm and its partners promise.

Dell touts the Latitude 7400 as the world's most compact 14-inch commercial 2-in-1, and that's credibly accurate. What that means, however, is that the Latitude 7400 is by all odds chunky, with a a few more millimeters of Z-height than a twiggy-and-illuminate intent. Dingle uses this to its advantage, however, by including a full cell of ports.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 tent — As a 2-in-1, the Latitude 7400 flips easily into tent mode,

The Parallel 7400's 3.3-pound heft, while not svelte, weighs to a lesser degree expected. It's also fair to say that the 78Wh battery option will permit you to bequeath the charger at habitation in most cases, which would otherwise bring the total locomotion weight to 4.08 pounds.

Dell's Line of latitude 7400 certainly doesn't look like the conventional affair-over-form business notebook. The euphonious aluminum exterior offers a bit more style. Increasingly notebook computer vendors of this propagation are trimming the bezels to streamline their products, and the 7400 is none exception: The side bezels are precisely 0.4mm thick, with a number more space (0.6mm) allocated to the pinnacle bezel to accommodate the webcam.

The Latitude 7400's display also emphasizes bombardment life, with a conventional 1080p showing that's moated by Gorilla gorilla Glaze 5. Not but does the Line of latitude's expose use extremely low power, the amount of light it emits is limited: Dingle rates it at 300 nits, though ours emitted a maximum of 284 nits. Piece that's not enough to combat outdoor glare in the summer sun, we plopped the Latitude 7400 adjacent to a well-flaming window and tapped away without issue. We didn't measure its color accuracy, but after comparing it to some other displays, it well-matched up well with a Microsoft Shallow Book 2.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 washed out — While the display in this shot isn't fully illuminated, the screen didn't give America whatever issues when on the job in illuminated spaces. Outdoors, however, colours quickly water-washed out.

Altogether told, the combining of slim bezels and the close-packed 14-inch show mean that the chassis measures just 12.59 inches wide past 7.87 inches deeply aside up to 0.59 inches thick. We didn't try it on an aeroplane tray table, just it should fit just fine. That additional heaviness also lends Dell's Latitude 7400 2-in-1 absolute constancy, with no detectable flex whatsoever.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 vents — A well-ventilated laptop usually means a quiet laptop with little, if whatsoever, caloric throttling. The Latitude 7400 2-in-1 runs quietly, even without the fans manually throttled down, as part of its "Quiet" mode.

Dell order equal care into the Parallel's aural ergonomics, to a fault. Dell ships its Magnate Manager utility inside the Parallel of latitude 7400, with options for the nonpayment Optimized mount, plus "Water-cooled," "Quiet," and "Ultra Performance." I found the default Optimized setting seldom turned on the system fan even while running benchmarks. Enabling Performance Mode increases the clock speed and runs the fan Sir Thomas More frequently, yet fan resound was exceptionally serenity and unobtrusive to the point that I had to cock an ear to steady detect information technology in the IDG offices. In the quiet of a home office the dearth of lover noise allowed Pine Tree State to take heed a slight, intermittent staticky buzz that louder PCs would have submerged dead.

Dell's ExpressSign-in: A convenient gimmick

Dell touts the Parallel of latitude 7400 2-in-1 as "the just Microcomputer that senses your presence," with a engineering the companionship calls ExpressSign-in. If configured with Windows Hello, ExpressSign-in will lock your Microcomputer automatically when you walkway away. But it volition also detect you when you go about,then use Windows Hello to log you in.

The technology uses a detector software packag to find out when in that respect's no one nearby, then automatically locks your PC. Windows already does something within reason similar (if enabled via Windows settings): If you pair a phone via Bluetooth, Windows can lock you out mechanically once your headphone goes out of range. However, Bluetooth's range can be eight-day enough that Dynamic Operate doesn't activate until you're farther away.

ExpressSign-in International Relations and Security Network't that much better. Information technology automatically turns off your PC within three minutes if it can't detectanyone in range. (In examination, it took 1 minute, 3 seconds in an empty-bellied office.) If someone wanders away and triggers the sensors before then—pansy! your PC is rear on, unlocked. Manually locking your PC is to a greater extent effective, though you rear end always forget.

ExpressSign-in's complemental "rouse along go about" technology is somewhat gimmicky: As you (operating theatre anyone else) nears, sensors detect your approach and ready Windows Hello for immediate login. (Otherwise, you'd have to tap the spacebar Beaver State power clitoris, look-alike a uncivilised.) I make love Windows Hello, but ExpressSign-in is the PC's equivalent of waving your hoof subordinate an SUV's bumper to raise the backrest think of. Dress you need it? Probably not, though it's sport and convenient.

You expect a good keyboard in a business laptop, but good sound? Keep reading to ascertain more.

A solid typing get

Like many people, my day-to-day work is performed upon a laptop keyboard, where I prefer comfortably spacious keys and medium key move around. Piece the Latitude 7400's keys are a bit small for my try, I found the laptop computer's keys pleasingly springy.

Dell's keyboard layout is pretty standard, using the conventional "cross" of pointer keys in the lower right-hand tree, with the Print CRT screen, Home, End, Put in and Delete keys left for the function keys in the top row. Of note is a key to disable the mic—a own concern of mine—with a small Light-emitting diode to alarm you when that particular occasion is active. Each key is backlit, with a cardinal-footstep gradation: on, brighter, and off.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 mic block — At that place's a dedicated key (with an LED) to disenable the mic.

The Latitude 7400's precision touchpad is a bit small because of the compact chassis. Clickable end-to-end all but a fingerbreadth at the top of the trackpad, it proved both legato and comfortable to use. I performed a number of two-, three-, and four-finger gestures well.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 right side — Along the right side of the physique is a earpiece jack, USB Type-A, an SD card time slot, (elective) WWAN SIM bearer, and a lock interface.

As you can see in the specification list above, the Latitude 7400 2-in-1 ships with a generous selection of ports. Though our review unit didn't include either, the Latitude 7400 bathroom be configured with a fingermark reader embedded in the power release, as well as a smartcard contact referee within the chassis. Instead, the webcam doubles as a Windows Hullo biometric login, and includes infrared sensing. There's no privacy shutter, however, though many competing notebooks now include this feature.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 left side — Another USB Type A slot appears on the left side of the Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1, plus a partner off of Thunderbolt ports and a dedicated HDMI port.

If you buy out the Parallel of latitude 7 400 2-in-1, deal investing in a consecrated webcam for your monitor. Images confiscate with the webcam (0.9MP still images, 720p television) were fuzzy, and areas of the image were overexposed, even with HDR capabilities turned on. I'd like to see a trifle more tending paid to the webcam inside a notebook designed for business users.

Consumer-quality speakers

Though Dingle designed the Latitude 7400 2-in-1 for business users, its audio is comparable to, or better than, what you May get on a consumer laptop. That's thanks to the MaxxAudioPro by Waves enhancement technology, which serves as both a explicit equalizer and a positional sound feature article.

Turn on the MaxxAudioPro equalizer, along with its MaxBass technology, boosts the low-end audio frequency to a esthetic level that evens out the listening experience from lows to highs. Additional features like Breadth widen the stereo experience victimisation equitable the laptop computer's speakers. Though PCWorld hasn't performed a broadside-by-side comparison to evaluate one audio-sweetening technology compared to some other, some form of audio enhancement goes a long way to improve the typical laptop sound experience, and MaxxAudioPro offers one of the all but sophisticated feature sets available.

With headphones in, MaxxAudioPro also provides the option to trip out the nx point audio, which uses the Latitude 7400's substance abuser-facing webcam to track your maneuver's put off and route the substantial accordingly. Wrick your head to your left, and Waves routes more audio to your right headphone speaker, and the other way around. In each, the nx technology generates the illusion that the audio frequency is coming directly from the screen out—a nifty play a trick on, though one you can live without.

All told, I only found two things I didn't similar about Dell's MaxxAudioPro get. By default, the software asks you to limit what sort of headphones you plugged in: true headphones, earbuds, OR over-the-ear earbuds. That gets grizzly, though you can opt proscribed. The Waves MaxxAudioPro nx engineering science also refuses to work with UWP apps, which excludes both the Microsoft Store Netflix app every bit well as any audio played back within Microsoft Edge. Though nx may be a fleck of a whatsis, the restrictions are annoying.

Minimal brain dysfunction-ons and accessories

Dell's Latitude 7400 2-in-1 ships with the usual contingent of Windows bloatware, on with three Dingle-proprietary utilities: Dell Command | Update, its utility for updating the BIOS and drivers; Dell Digital Legal transfer, a digital computer software storefront, and Dell Power Manager.

dell power manager — Dingle Major power Manager provides a number of options to reminder and contend the 7400's business leader, providing astuteness without supererogatory complexity. If Dell's Command | Update app provided this level of sophistication, IT could give Lenovo's Vantage utility a run its money.

The latter utility is a fantastically well-sentiment-out app with commissariat for managing the laptop's power consumption, monitoring and dominant the charge position, and evening increasing the longevity of the battery. Another preparation symmetric allows your laptop to keep going battery tycoo during certain predefined periods to minimize the load on the power grid. The only thing I'd like to see is the issue of cathexis cycles that the assault and battery has been subjected to. Otherwise, Dell Power Manager stands out as an example of what an OEM app should be.

As many Personal computer makers now do, at that place's an available ecosystem of accessories that you throne also purchase. Dell shipped three to America to review:

The $84.99 Dell PN579X Premium Active pen;

The $43.99 Dingle WM527 Premier Receiving set Mouse;

And the $329.99 WD19TB Dell Bolt DockRemove non-product link.

Dell's PN579X active pen registers 4,096 levels of forc sensibility, with a 240Hz report card grade. Though the Latitude 7400 2-in-1 doesn't include a consecrated holster to stash the pen, some sides of the 7400 are magnetized to grip the pen when not busy. There's too a lanyard in the boxwood, as well A a SIM removal puppet.

Dell PN579X Premier Active pen — Dell's PN579X Prime minister Active Write offers more pressure sensitivity than Dell's cheaper Active Pen.

Piece the PN579X does offer tilt bear, it wasn't operational happening the Line of latitude 7400. It's an odd pen, too: The top of the inning-mounted shortcut button serves as an app launcher, configurable within Windows, but there's no erasure capacity. The sole way to "score out" e-ink is to slightly dismay the top of the barrel-mounted clitoris. Otherwise, though, the e-ink latency was stripped.

Dell WM527 mouse — Dell's WM527 sneak away is a suggested accessory for the Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1.

Dell'S WM527 is basically a Microsoft electric discharge mouse, though with a thumbwheel and without the ability to fold planar. A sneak out that balances front and aft rather than with a jellied base kind of creeps me forbidden, but it's truly ambidextrous, with a side-mounted button on either side. You can connect either via Bluetooth or with an included radiocommunication dongle. IT runs happening a pair of Alcoholics Anonymous batteries.

Dell WD19TB dock — Dell's WD19TB dock is emphatically 1 to leave connected your desk, and not in your bag.

Dingle's WD19TB Thunderbolt dock, meanwhile, demands a considerable portion of your desk for the expansion ports it offers. Weighing 1.29 pounds, the wharfage requires a footprint of 8.1 x 3.5 inches. Though the Latitude 7400 supplies a number of ports, the WD19TB provides many more: a pair of DisplayPort connectors, an HDMI connector, two USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 ports, 1 Sir Thomas More generic USB-C porthole, and a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) connector, too. Alas, you'll need to figure down which is which, as they're starred with somewhat cryptic glyphs (an "SS10," a DisplayPort "D" and a lightning gobble) that don't quite cause clear what should be plugged into what. At that place are too three USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type – connectors, Gigabit ethernet, and a 3.5mm mic/headphone jack.

Keep reading to see the amazing performance and 18 hours of stamp battery life.

Top-notch performance and battery life

The Dingle Parallel of latitude 7400 2-in-1 proves you assume't have to sacrifice performance for long barrage life. While our review unit topped the cumulation in some tests, IT finished no lower than the middle of the pack in others. It also delivered the best graphics performance we've seen outdoors of a dedicated GPU. The selling point, however, was the bombardment life, which exactly matched that of a Snapdragon 850-powered tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Book 2, spell providing the performance of notebooks powered by Intel Core microprocessors.

We test exploitation a merge of logical and real-world benchmarks. The last mentioned category loads apps like GIMP and OpenOffice to simulate material-world workloads. These latter tests are based on PCMark 8, which use a battery of different apps classified into three benchmarks: PCMark 8 Ferment, Home and Creative.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 pcmark 8 — We combined all three PCMark tests into one grouping, stratified by execution, with the Dell Latitude 7400 debuting in first place. With a few laptops we went no further than the PCMark Work prove. Note the Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered Samsung Coltsfoot Book 2 at the bottom.

While Work emphasizes office tasks so much as video calls, spreadsheets, and word processing, the Home trial run begins steering the workloads toward web browsing and unclouded gaming. The Imaginative workloads are typically the most processor-intensive, leaning harder on GPU-intensive tasks ilk gaming, as well as photo and video editing. For a business notebook, the Latitude 7400's performance delivered stellar performance compensate out of the gate.

PCMark 10 reworks all three benchmarks for the forward-looking era. Again, typical office tasks like video calls play a role, but heavy-duty image manipulation exploitation the GIMP pictur-redaction tool as well Eastern Samoa more perceptive prosody like app startup times and GPU-stressing physics tests also appear. PCMark 10 recently debuted, so our archive of benchmarks isn't as comprehensive Eastern Samoa it is for PCMark 8. In this modern benchmark the Latitude 7400 still does well.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 pcmark 10 — Dingle's Latitude 7400 doesn't disappoint in the updated PCMark 10 benchmark, though it yet lags behind some of its competition.

We as wel stress the laptop processor doubly: via Cinebench, a Maxon-developed bench mark "sprint" that asks every CPU core and thread to render a scene as cursorily as imaginable, and HandBrake, an ASCII text file tool used to convert a Hollywood flic into a format that fire be played back on an Android tablet. First up is Handbrake, where the Parallel of latitude 7400 2-in-1 is nearly the fastest at completing this real-world task.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 handbrake — Dell's Parallel 7400 performed very well in our Handbrake picture-conversion test.

Cinebench stresses all of the cores over a poor period, using either R15 (a simpler scene) Beaver State R20 (a more complex setting). We test with some, though we have a larger database of scores from the older test. We were a little surprised to see the Latitude 7400 finish central dejected, given its performance elsewhere. We've just shown the R15 results here. One take down: turn connected the Ultra Performance mode within Power Manager didn't spend a penny a difference in the PCMark or 3DMark tests, only it did here: performance jumped 8 percentage, to 612.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 cinebench — Though the Latitude 7400's performance in this Cinebench test waterfall into the centre range, the relatively tight cluster of scores indicates that it's not doing poorly.

Finally, we return to 3DMark to test the integrated GPU using the Sky Diver trial. You'll see more desktop GPUs use more advanced tests, just the laptops and tablets lean to deliver scores on the Sky Loon benchmark that are more indicative of the sort of performance you'll undergo on simpler, older games. While you could try playing some of the in vogue 3D games on a device like the Latitude 7400 2-in-1, the sheer complexity of the scenes they render would likely bring in this laptop's scummy-stop MX150 GPU to its knees, unless the back's resolution and image quality are dialed retired to extremely low levels. Still, the Latitude 7400 outperforms everything that doesn't use a dedicated GPU.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 sky diver — The Dell Line of latitude 7400 delivers solid 3D performance.

The piece de resistance, of course, is the Line of latitude 7400's battery life. Because of its massive 78Wh battery, we didn't have much doubt that it could deliver on its promises of all-day battery life. And boy, does it: With a battery life northwesterly of18 hours, the Dell Latitude 7400 is a perfect choice for a transcontinental or transpacific flight, say from San Francisco to Taipei, operating theater from John Griffith Chaney to Los Angeles. It just keeps chugging away, even with display brightness dialed capable our standardized levels. We cringle a 4K movie time and again until the battery expires. It requires a weekend and more just for a good number of repetitions.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 latitude battery life — What can we say? Trusted, Dingle stuffed the Latitude 7400 with an oversized 78Wh bombardment, but it paid polish off, equaling the Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered Samsung Beetleweed Book 2 in battery life—down to the minute.

We should bank bill that within Dell's power-management package lies an selection to continue the battery life story evenmany, finished a process that lowers the display brightness, switches off the keyboard backlight, and clocks down the CPU. We couldn't discern any effect hither, in part because we dialed the display brightness backboneup to our standardized levels. But with an 18-60 minutes "criterion" assault and battery life, who's counting?

Conclusion: A must-have business laptop

Though more airlines are including power plugs, the real mental testing of a laptop is running from assignment to appointment, without any promise of a laptop computer charger in sight. That's been the display case for buying a Qualcomm Snapdragon PC—Thomas More and then than performance, which has suffered passably from how the CPU interprets instructions. Qualcomm promises that its coming Snapdragon 8cx fixes those flaws.

We stern wait. The Dell Inspiron 7400 2-in-1 delivers right here and right now. The marriage of top-notch performance and 18-plus hours of battery life merits our Editor program's Choice award. IT's a shinny to find a caveat: the weight? The 1080p show? The miss of an merged GPU? Yes, you'll make up finished the nose for this ultrapremium business PC. But it's the whole package, and worth fitting into your IT budget if you stool.

Correction: Our review unit shipped with a 512GB SSD inside, not 256GB equally in the beginning explicit. Dell offers up to a 2TB SSD NVMe option and the price begins at $1,599.

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As PCWorld's senior editor, Mark off focuses on Microsoft newsworthiness and scrap technology, among other beats. He has at one time written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/397631/dell-latitude-7400-2-in-1-review.html

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