Dell’s new Latitude 9440 is, as far as I can tell from the pictures, a Latitude with XPS vibes. It’s a convertible made of machined aluminum, it weighs just over three pounds, it has a 16:10 screen, and it has a 91.5 percent screen-to-body ratio – which Dell says is the best screen-to-body ratio. body ratio on a “14-inch commercial ultra-premium PC”. (It’s 12.2 x 8.46 x 0.59 inches.)
Hilariously specific accolades aside, this 2-in-1 device (whose price and availability haven’t yet been announced, though I’ll spare you the tension and predict it won’t be cheap) looks like a C-suite-oriented commercial product with some funky features that you wouldn’t necessarily expect on… well, a Dell Latitude.
First, the keyboard is backlit by mini-LEDs, which are said to reduce the backlit keyboard’s power consumption by up to 75 percent and extend battery life by “up to three hours.” (I’ve had battery issues with Latitudes in the past, so any improvement would be welcome.) Looking at this keyboard, it looks strikingly similar to that of the Dell XPS 13 Plus. It uses the same keyboard design, which Dell calls “zero-lattice”.
These giant keys with a small amount of space between them should make typing easier. My experience using them on the XPS 13 Plus was that they took some getting used to and didn’t revolutionize my typing experience, but were fine in the end. (It wasn’t the second coming of the butterfly keyboard, as I’d feared.) The XPS 13 Plus, it must be said, also had non-physical haptic function keys, which I had some complaints about and am glad to see that the Latitude 9440 has been deprecated in favor of an old-fashioned feature row.
Elsewhere, the device has a haptic “collaborative touchpad” with hotkeys for accessing the microphone, camera, screen sharing and chat controls. Ports include three Thunderbolt 4, an audio jack, a lock slot and an optional nano SIM card tray. It is powered by Intel’s 13th generation.
Dell has also updated its lightweight 7000 series with the Latitude 7340 and 7440 Ultralight models, which will be among the lightest business laptops you can buy this year, starting at 2.17 pounds. These have a new 5MP camera and 5G connectivity, as well as a new “river” color (a grayish-blue) option. They also have the same Mini LED backlit keyboard as the 9440. Port selection is more diverse than that of the 9440, including HDMI 2.0 support in addition to Thunderbolt 4 and USB 3.2 Gen 1.
I recently reviewed the Latitude 7330 (which will succeed the 7340) and found it didn’t quite deserve its hefty price tag. In addition to a fairly short battery life, the device had a somewhat boring design. I’m especially happy to see that Dell has finally replaced the 16:9 screen of this series with 16:10. We’ll hopefully see how well Dell has addressed the battery life issues when these models start to hit reviewers’ desks.
