Dell’s newest business laptop is a convertible notebook with a thin and light design, slim bezels, a big battery, and a surprisingly stylish design for a Dell Latitude machine. The company says the goal was to make a machine that would offer the performance and features of a professional machine and the looks of a premium consumer notebook.
It’s also the first computer to feature a proximity sensor that wakes the computer when you approach. Used together with the Windows Hello-compatible IR camera for face unlock, the technology allows you to sit down in front of your computer and sign in just by looking at it. There’s no need to press the power button or any other key.
The Dell Latitude 14 7000 2-in-1 should be available in March, with prices starting at $1599.
The notebook measures 12.6″ x 7.9″ x 0.6″ and weighs just 3 pounds when configured with a 52 Wh battery, although there’s also a 78 Wh battery option if you value longer battery life over lighter weight.
Dell says you should be able to get up to 24 hours of run time from the larger battery, but the company uses the generous MobileMark 14 test to come to that figure, so you can probably expect something closer to 10-15 hours in real-world conditions.
The system also supports fast charging. Plug in the USB Type-C adapter and you should be able to get an 80 percent charge in an hour or a 35 percent charge in just 20 minutes.
The laptop has a 1920 x 1080 pixel touchscreen display with active pen support and a drop hinge that has the bottom of the lid rest behind the back of the laptop instead of above it, to give the notebook a lower profile.
Under the hood, the system will be available with up to 2TB of PCIe NVME solid state storage, up to 16GB of LPDDR3-21333 RAM, and an Intel Whiskey Lake-U quad-core processor.
It features two Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a full-sized HDMI 1.4 port and optional security features including a fingerprint reader, IR camera, smart card reader, and NFC. There’s also optional support for a 4G LTE cellular modem.
