Dell Latitude 3500 Review: A Small, But Sleek Business Laptop 

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Dell Latitude 3500: At First Glance

Dell is widely known for designing laptops for entertainment and business purposes. Hence, this Dell Latitude 3500 is not different from one of those laptops.

According to Dell, the Latitude 3500 is ideal for business use – as a personal laptop or a work tool for staff. Whichever way you plan to use this laptop, it will offer you the needed power for a business computer.

Thankfully, the Dell Latitude 3500 comes at a relatively low price that even small businesses can afford. Precisely, at the time I wrote this review in February 2022, it had a starting price of $898.

Due to its low price, you might be eager to know what this laptop offers in terms of its performance. In that case, let us proceed with this review.

Dell Latitude 3500: Design, Dimensions, and Weight

Like most Dell laptops, the Latitude 3500 comes in a simple and sleek design. It is simple, small, and blends easily with its surroundings.

This laptop is made from a striking aluminum chassis and an interior made of plastic. However, merely looking at the laptop, it appears like the entire chassis is made of plastic.

This might give you an insinuation that the Dell Latitude 3500 is fragile. However, it is pretty solid.

Furthermore, the Dell Latitude 3500 comes in different color options. Depending on your choice, you can get this laptop in red, gold, or silver colors.

It is safe to say that Dell chose these colors with customer focus in mind. This is because all the colors look great on the laptop.

However, the Dell Latitude 3500 model I reviewed in this section is silver-colored.

Now let us proceed to the design features of this laptop, starting with the lid. The first thing you will notice on the lid of this laptop is a ”DELL” logo.

The logo sits at the center of the lid. The logo is encircled by a white outline that can easily catch your attention.

Meanwhile, the lid feels very smooth when you run your hands on it. Moreover, the lid is held firmly to the lower chassis by two hinges.

This makes opening the lid with one hand almost impossible. The hinges are strong enough to prevent the lid from flexing easily when tilted backward or when opening.

Upon opening the lid, you will be greeted by an attractive 15.6-inch display that is surrounded by fairly thick bezels.

At the middle of the top bezel, you will find an IR webcam. Meanwhile, the bottom bezel has the ”DELL” logo.

For the display, it might impress you to know that it comes in two resolutions. Hence, depending on your choice, you can get the laptop with an HD (1366 x 768 pixels) resolution.

You can also get the display with a Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) resolution. The difference between the two display types is the number of pixels they pack.

Meanwhile, this review is based on a Dell Latitude 3500 with Full HD resolution. Therefore, with the Full HD display, you will get double the pixel size of its HD counterpart.

This implies that images will be sharper on the FHD display than on the HD display.

Furthermore, this laptop features a TrueLife display with an optional touchscreen model. With the TrueLife display, you will enjoy screen content with clarity and a more attractive color.

The laptop also has a screen brightness of 220 nits which is quite decent for a laptop in this price category.

When it comes to the aspect ratio, the display has a 16:9 standard aspect ratio. Hence, most movies should display without black bars at the top and bottom.

However, the Dell Latitude 3500 has a poor viewing angle. Hence, images might look a bit distorted when you view the screen from an angle.

Moving on to the deck of the laptop, there you will find the keyboard. Dell laptops usually come with good keyboards hence the Dell Latitude 3500 did not disappoint me in this aspect.

The laptop features a broad keyboard with firm and spacious keys. The keys produce clicky feedback from every keystroke.

Moreover, the keys also have good key travel that makes typing easy and fun. I’m not surprised about this laptop’s excellent keyboard because it is majorly built for business purposes.

The most appealing part of this keyboard is the fact that it is backlit. This is because backlit keyboards are not commonly found on laptops in this price category.

Thankfully, the backlit keyboard of the Dell Latitude 3500 makes it suitable to type at night.

Meanwhile, below the keyboard toward the curved front edge is the dedicated touchpad. This touchpad is smooth and accurate.

Moving away from the laptop’s deck to its base, you will find ventilation grilles and the speaker cut-out. With the speaker on the base of this laptop, it might not produce great audio output.

However, because this is a business laptop, I was not expecting much in terms of its multimedia as I would from a gaming laptop.

Moving to the sides of the laptop’s base, there you will find the ports. The laptop comes with enough ports that can take care of all your connectivity needs.

Specifically, on the right side, there is a VGA port, one USB 2.0 port, and an SD card slot. Also, the right side of the laptop features a power input port, two USB 3.1 ports, and one HDMI.

Additionally, the left side also has one USB 3.1 Type-C port, one Ethernet port, and an audio jack. With these numbers of ports on the Dell Latitude 3500, one might be thinking about its weight already.

Speaking of its weight, the Dell Latitude 3500 weighs 1,980 g. Furthermore, this laptop has a dimension of 378.6 x 255.3 x 18 mm (W x D x H).

From its size and weight, the Dell Latitude 3500 is a portable laptop that can be carried about with ease. Little wonder Dell called it a ”small and sleek business laptop”.

In comparison, the Dell Inspiron 14 5482 laptop weighs 1,860 g, which makes it lighter than the Dell Latitude 3500. On the other hand, Dell Latitude E6430 weighs 2014 g which makes it heavier than the Dell Latitude 3500.

In conclusion, the Dell Latitude 3500 is well-built considering its design quality, ports selection, and display quality. Therefore, I will be rating a nine out of ten in this design review section.

Dell Latitude 3500: Processor (CPU) Performance

The Dell Latitude 3500 comes with two processor options. Firstly, it comes with an Intel Celeron 4205U processor with 2-cores.

This processor has a base and boost frequencies of 1.80 GHz. Additionally, the processor has a cache memory of 2 MB.

Secondly, the Dell Latitude 3500 comes with a quad-core Intel Core i7-8565U processor. This processor has a base frequency of 1.80 GHz, a boost frequency of 4.80 GHz, and 8 MB cache memory.

Although both processor options are high-performing, the Intel Core i7-8565U is better and faster. The reason is that with 4 processor cores, the laptop can process more tasks simultaneously compared to 2 processor cores.

Meanwhile, you should be aware that this review is based on a Dell Latitude 3500 with the Intel Core i7-8565U processor. Hence, the review unit is capable of handling intensive computing tasks with ease.

In order to ascertain the performance of this processor, I will be sharing the Cinebench R20 test result with you. Cinebench R20 benchmark is used to evaluate the processor performance of a computer by using its processor cores.

The Cinebench R20 test is divided into two, the first one is the single-core test. In the single-core test, only one processor core is tasked.

Meanwhile, the second test is a multi-core test that involves using all the processor cores. In both tests, a higher score means that the processor performance is better.

Consequently, the Dell Latitude scored 459 points in the single-core test and 1518 points in the multi-core test. In comparison, Lenovo Ideapad C340 15 scored 403 points in a single-core test and 1564 points in a multi-core test.

In conclusion, the Dell Latitude 3500 performance in the benchmark tests is in line with that of its competitor. Therefore, I will rate it an eight out of ten in this processor review section.

Dell Latitude 3500: Memory (RAM) Performance

This laptop features a DDR4 SDRAM with a speed of 2400 MHz. It supports a 4 GB standard memory size and up to 32 GB maximum memory size.

Furthermore, this laptop comes with 2 memory slots. This means that to max out the memory on this laptop, you can have 16 GB of memory on each slot.

However, the Dell Latitude 3500 I am reviewing comes with 4 GB memory on each slot. With 4 GB memory, this review unit was capable of multitasking with ease.

Hence, this laptop should open 20 Chrome browser tabs without slowing down. Additionally, few browser tabs might even stream videos but, this will not cause the laptop to lag.

However, to be more specific about the performance of this laptop, I will be sharing its PCMark test result. A PCMark 10 test measures the performance of a computer’s memory based on real-world applications.

Similar to the previous benchmark, a higher score in the PC Mark 10 test means better performance. Hence, Dell Latitude 3500 had a total score of 3670 points in the benchmark test.

In comparison, the Dell Latitude 3500 score is higher than that of the Lenovo IdeaPad S340 which scored 2753 points.

The benchmark result shows that this laptop is capable of delivering an impressive memory performance. Therefore, I will be rating the Dell Latitude 3500 a seven out of ten in this memory review section.

Dell Latitude 3500: Storage Options and Performance

The Dell Latitude 3500 comes with three storage options.

Firstly, it comes with a SATA HDD with a speed of 5400 RPM. The maximum storage capacity allowed on this storage option is 1 TB.

Secondly, this laptop comes with an M.2 SATA SSD with a maximum storage capacity of 1 TB as well. Finally, the Dell Latitude 3500 comes with an NVMe SSD storage option also with a maximum capacity of 1 TB.

For this review, we will focus on the Dell Latitude 3500 model with 1 TB SATA HDD storage.

However, SSD storage is faster and more power-efficient than HDD storage. Also, SSD is not prone to crash like HDD, which is an electromechanical drive.

Hence, you can go for the SSD storage options as they will serve you better. To determine the storage performance of my review unit, I will share its CrystalDiskMark result.

For clarity, the CrystalDiskMark benchmark is a test tool that calculates the read and write speeds of computer storage.

The sequential read speed of a laptop determines how long it takes to open files. Meanwhile, sequential write speed shows how long it takes a laptop to save a file.

In the CrystalDiskMark test, the Dell Latitude 3500 had a read speed of 490 MBps. On the other hand, the laptop had a sequential write speed of 470 MBps.

In comparison, the HP 250 G6 had a read speed of 488 MBps and a write speed of 455 MBps. It is worth noting that this HP 250 G6 comes with an HDD storage option as well.

From the result above, it is obvious that the Dell Latitude 3500 has a better storage performance. Based on that, I will be rating it a nine out of ten in this storage review section.

Dell Latitude 3500: Graphics Card Performance

The Dell Latitude 3500 comes with two graphics options. This laptop features an Intel UHD Graphics 620 which is an integrated graphics card.

This graphics card has a base frequency of 300 MHz and a boost frequency of 1150 MHz. Being an integrated graphics card, it shares the computer’s memory with the CPU.

Secondly, this laptop comes with an NVIDIA GeForce MX130 dedicated graphics card. This graphics card has a based frequency of 1109 MHz and a boost frequency of 1189 MHz.

In contrast to an integrated GPU, a dedicated GPU usually have a special memory to handle its graphics processing. This special memory is known as video RAM or VRAM for short.

In this regard, the NVIDIA GeForce MX130 graphics card has 2 GB GDDR5 Video RAM.

Meanwhile, the Dell Latitude 3500 model I am reviewing comes with the Intel UHD Graphics 620. Consequently, because this is an integrated GPU you will only be able to play modern games on low or medium settings.

Speaking of which, the laptop should play Fire Strike at 30 fps on low settings. Additionally, the computer should play DOTA 2 at 26 fps on medium settings.

For more insight about the graphics performance of my review unit, I will be sharing its 3D Mark benchmark result.

Briefly, 3D Mark is a test tool that evaluates how a computer’s GPU renders 3D graphics. From the 3D Mark benchmark test, a higher score means better performance.

Based on the benchmark result, the Dell Latitude 3500 scored 1054 points. In comparison, the HP ProBook 450 G6 that comes with the same GPU had 1074 points.

Hence, the HP ProBook performed slightly better than the Dell Latitude 3500.

Overall, the graphics performance of Dell Latitude 3500 with Intel UHD Graphics 620 GPU is quite acceptable considering that it is an integrated graphics card. However, for better performance, I will advise you to go for the dedicated graphics option.

In conclusion, based on the performance of Dell Latitude 3500 in this graphics section, I will be rating it a seven.

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Dell Latitude 3500: Battery Life and Performance

Like its graphics, this laptop also comes with two battery options to choose from. You can either get this laptop with 3 cells 42 Whr battery or with 4 cells 56 Whr Lithium-ion battery.

Although Dell was silent about the battery life of both battery options, it is preferable to go for the 56 Whr battery. This is because the 4 cells 56 Whr option has a better battery capacity.

Hence, it is most likely to have a better battery life than the first option.

Meanwhile, this review is based on the Dell Latitude 3500 with a 4-cell 56 WHr Lithium-ion battery. To be sure of this laptop’s battery performance, let me share with you some battery tests performed by notebookcheck.com.

Based on the test, the Dell Latitude 3500 battery lasted 9 hours 44 minutes in a WiFi web surfing test. Furthermore, in a video playback test, this laptop was able to survive for up to 9 hours 20 minutes.

This performance is less than I was expecting from this laptop. Being a Business laptop, I was expecting a battery life of 12 hours and above.

However, 9 hours of battery life is not a totally bad one.

Based on the performance of the Dell Latitude 3500 in this battery life review section, I will be rating it a seven out of ten.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Dell Latitude 3500 has an impressive build quality for a laptop in its price category. It also has an impressive overall performance that makes it suitable for business purposes.

Hence, considering the price of this laptop, most business people should afford it. Therefore, getting this laptop in a small unit or a large quality will not be pocket tearing.

Another impressive feature of this laptop is that Dell took its time to make it available in multiple specs options. Hence, users can choose any of the options that are suitable for their needs.

In conclusion, if you are on a quest for an ideal business laptop, then you have gotten yourself one.

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