Dell Latitude E7450 Review: Durability at its Best!

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Dell Latitude E7450: At First Glance

The Dell Latitude E7450 doesn’t offer a detachable screen or a 360-degree hinge. However, it is still definitely one of the best and affordable business laptops on the market.

It’s a simple and light 14-inch business laptop designed for individuals who need to work on the go. This 14-inch laptop starts at a price of $302.03 and includes a pointing stick for precision mouse navigation.

It also has a fantastic keyboard, excellent performance, and a durable design for such a decent price. Should the Latitude E7450 be your next portable workstation, though, given the intense competition from PC manufacturers like Lenovo?

Dell Latitude E7450: Design, Dimension & Weight

With a simple black-on-black appearance that doesn’t draw attention to itself, the Dell Latitude E7450 looks like a laptop meant for work. However, the laptop has a glossy carbon fiber lid and a charcoal gray aluminum alloy edge that gives it a luxurious appearance and feel – features not necessarily associated with work or business laptops.

Furthermore, the E7450’s curved edges make it appear more attractive than its main rival, Lenovo’s ThinkPad T450s.

Along with its beautiful appearance, the Dell Latitude E4750 is also durable. The E7450 is MIL-SPEC rated, which means it can withstand wet, dirty, high-vibration, extreme heat, and cold environments.

If you desire more durability, the touch-screen model features a strong Gorilla Glass that resists scratching.

Picking up this laptop, you can tell how durable it is – It feels quite solid. That’s a huge bonus for travelers who require a laptop that can withstand almost anything on long travels.

The Dell Latitude E7450 features a 14-inch display with either an (HD) 1366 x 768 pixels or (FHD) 1920 x 1080 pixels screen resolution. A Touch-screen functionality is also available but optional, but I recommend ignoring the touchscreen display because it adds weight and costs more.

The full-HD 1920 x 1080 pixel screen on the laptop I reviewed was vibrant and clear but it is a little dull. This is because it has a matte texture, which is less bright than glossy display screens.

In other words, if you’re planning to use the laptop for spreadsheets rather than watching movies, a matte display finish is a bonus. Moreover, matte texture is found on the majority of business laptops.

The Dell Latitude E7450 gets it right when it comes to the keyboard, which is perhaps the most crucial element on a business laptop. Individual keys are evenly spaced and provide good feedback without being sticky.

Furthermore, they also feature a decent amount of travel, measuring 1.5 millimeters, which is substantially deeper than a typical thin laptop. Deeper keys provide a more comfortable, desktop-like experience, which is a good thing.

However, as excellent as Latitude E7450’s keyboard is, Lenovo’s T450‘s keyboard is better. Its keys are much deeper, with 1.9 millimeters of key travel, and are comfier to use.

In addition, they’re also more contoured than Dell’s square keys, making them easier to navigate by touch. Finally, the Lenovo T450 keyboard includes full-size arrow keys that are easier to push than the Latitude E7450’s shrunken-down buttons.

I have no issues regarding the Dell Latitude E7450’s touchpad. The touchpad’s cursor control is efficient and responsive.

The touchpad also supports gestures like two-finger scrolling.

Many users may prefer the E7450’s dedicated buttons below the touchpad to the ThinkPad T450’s clickable touchpad. Dedicated buttons, on the other hand, consume space that may have been used to accommodate a larger touchpad.

A pointing stick, which is more precise than a touchpad, is a nice feature in a business laptop these days. The pointing stick on Dell’s Latitude E7450 is sandwiched between the G, H, and B keys, and it functions well.

Above the touchpad are three dedicated buttons for the pointing stick that enables easy left, right, and middle clicks. The pointing stick buttons, like the touchpad buttons, have a lovely, soft feel and don’t make an excessively loud click noise when pressed.

Moving on to ports, the Latitude E7450 features a decent amount, but the majority of them are located mostly behind the laptop. As a result, they’re less accessible than the ports on laptops like the T450s, which are on the sides.

The left side of the laptop houses just an SD Card reader. A headphone jack and a USB 3.0 are located on the right side of the laptop.

There are two more USB 3.0 ports on the back, as well as an Ethernet port, HDMI and DisplayPorts, and a charging port.

The Dell Latitude E7450 also features an HD webcam mounted just above the display screen. Although the images produced by this webcam are blurry, it is still suitable for video calling.

The Latitude E7450 features stereo speakers which are located at the bottom of the laptop. The speakers create adequate sound, but when I raised the volume all the way up, I detected some distortion.

The Dell Latitude E7450, like any excellent business laptop, comes with some useful security features. Dell’s Data Protection software, for example, allows you to create safe encryption policies for your system and provides enterprise-level auditing and reporting capabilities.

The E7450 can also be purchased with a fingerprint scanner, which will keep your laptop secure in case it is misplaced, compromised, or stolen.

In terms of weight and dimension, the E7450 measures 337 x 231.5 x 18.8 mm and weighs 1550 g. Furthermore, if you purchase the Dell Latitude E7450 with a touchscreen display, it weighs even more – 1710 g.

In comparison, the Lenovo ThinkPad T450 weighs less than the touchscreen-equipped Latitude E7450. However, without a touchscreen display, the Latitude E7450 is lighter than the Lenovo ThinkPad T450.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T450 weighs 1555 g and has a dimension of 330.2 x 226.06 x 21 mm.

Finally, the Latitude E7450 has a robust build quality and is easy to handle due to its portable size. Despite the fact that the ThinkPad T450 is better than the laptop, I believe it deserves a nine in this design review.

Dell Latitude E7450: Processor (CPU) Performance

The Dell Latitude E7450 comes standard with a 2-core Intel Core i7-5600U processor. This processer has a base frequency of 2.60 GHz and a maximum frequency of 3.20 GHz, as well as a 4 MB cache.

In addition, this Intel Core i7-5600U also happens to be a Broadwell processor. Broadwell is Intel’s codename for the Haswell microarchitecture’s 14 nm die shrink, they are also the fifth generation of Intel’s core processors. 

Broadwell processors are known for being extremely fast and multitasking capable. They’re ideal for graphic designers or users who make use of powerful software and demand top-notch performance.

Based on its processor specs, I expect this laptop to be great at multitasking. Obviously, I am not going to take its specs at face value!

I conducted a PassMark CPU Benchmark test to determine the performance of the Dell Latitude E7450’s Intel Core i7-5600U processor. According to the benchmark test, the Latitude E7450 scored 4350 points.

This benchmark score is quite okay but it wasn’t enough to outperform the HP Pavilion 15’s Intel Core i7-4710HQ processor. On the same test, the HP Pavilion 15 scored 7900 points.

Finally, in this processor performance review, I am rating the Dell Latitude E7450 eight out of ten.

Dell Latitude E7450: Memory (RAM) Performance

The Dell Latitude E7450 laptop comes with two 1600 MHz DDR3L SDRAM slots. Each slot can take a maximum capacity of 8 GB.

In one slot, the laptop I reviewed had 8 GB of RAM, but the second slot had no RAM.

Dell is well-known for its upgradeability. As a result, if you require more memory, simply insert another 8 GB RAM into the second slot, bringing the total RAM to 16 GB.

The laptop I reviewed which, as I mentioned earlier had 8 GB of RAM, was really good at multitasking. As a result, I was able to launch various applications and navigate between them without noticing any lag.

In addition, I ran a Geekbench 3 benchmark test to determine the laptop’s memory performance. According to the test, the laptop scored 5326 points.

In comparison, the Dell Latitude E7450 was outperformed by Lenovo ThinkPad T450. The ThinkPad T450 was able to score 5993 points on the benchmark test.

In conclusion, even though the Latitude E7450 was outperformed by its competitor, I think it deserves an eight for its excellent multitasking performance.

Dell Latitude E7450: Storage Option & Performance

Let’s discuss the storage options for the Dell Latitude E7450 Laptop. The laptop includes an SSD storage option with a maximum capacity of 512GB.

In addition, the laptop also has an SD card reader for additional storage. The laptop I reviewed came with a 250 GB solid-state drive (SSD).

For most people, a 250 GB SSD should be sufficient, and besides SSDs are also faster and more durable than HDDs. You can save a lot of photographs, music, videos, and games with this SSD storage.

However, if you have a large amount of data to store, you can add an SD memory card to expand your storage.

To determine the transfer speed of the SSD on the Dell Latitude E7450 laptop, I conducted a file transfer test. On the transfer test, the laptop copied 4.97GB of mixed media files in 39 seconds for a transfer rate of 130.5 MBps.

Unfortunately, this transfer rate was unable to beat the ThinkPad T450’s transfer rate of 149.7 MBps. On the bright side, the Dell Latitude E7450’s transfer rate was faster than the category average of 104 MBps.

Finally, I am happy to rate the Dell Latitude E7450 eight out of ten in this storage review.

Dell Latitude E7450: Graphic Card Performance

The Dell Latitude E7450 offers multiple graphics card options. You can either get the laptop with an integrated Intel HD Graphics 5500 or NVIDIA GeForce 840M Graphics.

The Intel HD Graphics 5500 has a base GPU frequency of 300 MHz and a maximum GPU frequency of 950 MHz. On the other hand, the NVIDIA GeForce 840M Graphics has a base GPU frequency of 1029 MHz and a maximum GPU frequency of 1124 MHz.

Unfortunately, the Intel HD Graphics 5500 lacks a dedicated VRAM which means it will have to share the system memory with the processor. On the bright side, the NVIDIA GeForce 840M Graphics features a 2 GB DDR3 dedicated VRAM – making it a better GPU for gaming and graphics-intensive applications.

The laptop I reviewed came standard with an Intel HD Graphics 5500. Even without a dedicated VRAM, the graphics card is capable of some light gaming.

To determine the graphics card performance, I conducted a 3DMark Fire Strike graphics benchmarks test. In the test, the Latitude E7450’s Intel HD Graphics 5500 scored 599 points.

Unfortunately, this score wasn’t enough to surpass the Thinkpad T450’s score of 738 points.

I also ran a gaming test to further determine the graphics card’s performance. On the gaming test, while playing World of Warcraft, the laptop was able to achieve 26 fps on 1,920 x 1,080 resolution and auto settings.

In comparison, the Latitude E7450 was once again outperformed by the Thinkpad T450. While playing World of Warcraft, the Thinkpad T450 reached a frame rate of 33 fps on 1,920 x 1,080 screen resolution.

Therefore, if you are a gamer or uses graphical intensive applications, I strongly advise you to opt for the NVIDIA GeForce 840M Graphics card. This is because it features a dedicated VRAM and it is also has a better clock speed.

Finally, I am rating the Latitude E7450 a seven in this graphics review. This rating is based on the Intel HD Graphics 5500 performance.

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Dell Latitude E7450: Battery Life & Performance

Just like its graphics, the Dell Latitude E7450 offers multiple battery options. You can get the E7450 with either a 3-cell, 40 Whr or 4-cell, 54 Whr Lithium Polymer battery.

The battery that came with the Latitude E7450 I reviewed was a 4-cell, 54Whr Lithium Polymer battery. According to laptopmag.com, this laptop should be able to last about 8.5 hours.

However, to verify laptopmag.com’s claim about the Dell Latitude E7450 battery, I conducted a battery test. The battery test includes continuously surfing the internet using a WIFI connection and setting the laptop’s brightness to medium. 

On the battery test, the Latitude E7450 4-cell Lithium Polymer battery had an impressive runtime of 8 hours and 36 minutes.

Comparatively, the Dell Latitude E7450 outperformed the Lenovo ThinkPad T450. On the same battery test, the ThinkPad T450 had a runtime of 7 hours and 31 minutes.

In conclusion, the Dell Latitude E7450 has an impressive battery life for a laptop this portable. Therefore, in this battery performance review, I am rating the Latitude E7450 a nine.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The Dell Latitude E7450 is a good business laptop overall. It boasts a durable carbon-fiber/magnesium-alloy body, and its 8-hour battery life is quite impressive for a 14-inch laptop.

The comfy keyboard and reasonably bright matte display are particularly appealing. However, the speakers and audio quality could be a little better.

In conclusion, if you’re looking for a business laptop or a portable laptop with outstanding durability, the Dell Latitude E7450 is the laptop for you!

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