Dell announces the renewal of some of the flagship products in its line of professional PCs. Among the new features, the Latitude 7340 and 7440 Ultralight compete internally with the XPS 13, the benchmark on the market.
Dell Latitude 7340 Ultralight. Photo credit: Dell
Dell is today unveiling the latest products it showed us in December during a preview presentation it invited us to in New York. Three months after CES 2023, which announced a new repairable computing concept, screens and new gaming laptops, the company is now announcing its new business PCs.
While the new Precision workstations, new OptiPlex desktops, and new Latitude 5000-series laptops all have little appeal to the majority of Frandroid’s readership, one series in particular caught our attention.
Dell Latitude 7340 and 7440 Ultralight: better than an XPS 13?
Dell is effectively introducing an “ultralight” variant of the new generation of Latitude 7000-series laptops, which claim the title of “the world’s smallest and lightest premium 13.3- and 14-inch business laptops”. In some respects they supplant the famous XPS 13, which is often thought of as the Windows equivalent of Apple’s MacBook Air and as such is the benchmark for portable PCs.
The bulk of the Dell Latitude 7340 and 7440 Ultralight “starts” at 982g and 1.06kg, respectively, compared to 1.17kg for a Dell XPS 13 model 9315 and 1.24kg for a 13.6-inch MacBook Air M2 . For this, Dell combines a new mini-LED technology for the keyboard backlight (“up to almost 3 hours of autonomy gain”) with a 38 Wh battery, lighter, with which the two models claim an autonomy of 8 h 46 min and 7 h 45 min (MobileMark 18, keyboard backlight off). Otherwise, it offers a 57 Wh battery, with which the mass increases to 1.04 and 1.12 kg and the autonomy to 12 h 01 min and 12 h 13 min. The Dell XPS 13 and MacBook Air M2 have 51 and 52.6 Wh batteries, respectively, and promise a range of 12 and 18 hours, respectively.
The 13.3-inch model is 299mm wide, 212.90mm deep and 16.67mm thick at the front and 17.60mm at the rear. The 14-inch model measures 313 x 220.2 x 17.15-17.95mm. This makes them slightly larger than an XPS 13 (295.4 x 199.4 x 13.99 mm) or a MacBook Air (304.1 x 215 x 11.3 mm) and relatively thicker.
Intended primarily for businesses, they in turn offer a wider range of connectors, making them more versatile, without the need for adapters. In addition to two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, which the two competing products are content with, they actually offer an HDMI 2.0 output and one or even two USB-A 5 Gb/s ports. It’s very handy while waiting for USB-C to be fully generalized. Only an Ethernet connection is missing.
In addition to Wi-Fi 6E (Intel AX211) and Bluetooth 5.3, these laptops offer a 5G modem option (Intel 5000) that allows you to stay connected to the Internet on the go without the slightest manipulation to enable connection sharing with her smartphone or to connect to a guest WiFi network. Unfortunately, this possibility is too often reserved for ranges intended for companies.
These laptops also feature a 13th Gen Intel Core U-series processor (no AMD configuration), up to 32GB LPDDR5 4800MHz RAM (non-removable), up to 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD, a 5- Megapixel Windows Hello compatible webcam, 2 noise-cancelling microphones and 4 speakers. They don’t ignore the 3.5mm plug. Their screens, in turn, adopt the 16:10 format, with a standard 1920 x 1200 pixel IPS panel “Full HD+”, optional touch on the 7340 or Touch and “QHD+” with 2560 x 1600 pixels on the 7440.
The price and launch date of the Dell Latitude 7340 and 7440 Ultralight are not disclosed.
Dell Latitude 7340, 7440 and 7640 Aluminum
Dell is also renewing the traditional Latitude 7000s. With an aluminum body, the 13.3- and 14-inch Latitude 7340 and 7440 weigh 1.156 and 1.33 kg, respectively. The manufacturer uses the refresh to add a 1.835 kg 16-inch variant limited to a Full HD+ resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels.
These aluminum versions are otherwise identical to the magnesium versions, except they offer less high-end configurations with less bright screens, Full HD webcams, or 4G modems.
The Dell Latitude 7340, 7440 and 7640 in aluminum are available immediately from 1529, 1509 and 1599 euros without VAT.
Dell Latitude 9440: The XPS 13 for CEOs
Finally, Dell launches the Latitude 9440, which succeeds the 9340 and can be presented as the corporate counterpart to the XPS 13 Plus. It inherits the monolithic design and edge-to-edge design of its keyboard, but doesn’t inherit the controversial array of capacitive touch function keys.
It is, however, with its 14-inch QHD+ touchscreen and 2-in-1 design, better camera, microphones and speakers, dedicated function keys for Microsoft Teams and Zoom built into its haptic touchpad, or even the 5G one Possibility of step higher positioned.
Compared to its predecessor, the Latitude 9340, it further increases the screen-to-body ratio, so it is a bit more compact with the same screen size and goes from the 12th to the 13th generation of the Intel Core processor. And compared to its predecessor, as well as the aforementioned Latitude 7X40s, it houses a second fan that allows its processor to draw up to 20W.
The Dell Latitude 9440 will go on sale on March 28 for an undisclosed price.
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