The Dell Latitude series is dedicated to working professionals. The series brings the latest technology coupled with a sturdy design language. Banking on this success formula, the company has recently refreshed its Latitude lineup with the latest Intel processors in a compact form factor. The Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 is the new offering from the brand that brings a thin and lightweight companion for working professionals. The laptop comes with a starting price of Rs 1,54,999. However, does it have enough of an arsenal to become a reliable machine for business users? Let’s find out in this in-depth review.

Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 Laptop Design: Sturdy and Minimal

• Dimension – 313 x 222.8 x 18.19 mm
• Weight – 1.526kg
• Colours – Aluminium, Titan Grey

The Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 offers a premium and sturdy look, keeping working professionals in mind. The laptop strikes a good balance between elegance and performance. Although it is not the slimmest in the segment, it is surely easy to carry around, all thanks to its compact size and 1.5kg weight. I got the Titan Grey colour option, and it sure looks minimal, with a subtle matte finish on the lid along with a glossy Dell logo.

The Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 is available in two colour options: Aluminium and Titan Grey.

The laptop has a solid hinge that allows you to use it in different modes, such as tent, stand, and tablet. Plus, there is no wobble, which makes it easier to use this laptop in different settings.

Once you open the lid, you will be greeted with a backlit keyboard along with a pretty stand touchpad. The right side of the device features a 3.5mm audio jack, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, and a wedge-shaped lock slot. On the left, you will find two Thunderbolt 4.0 with Power Delivery and DisplayPort, along with a HDMI 2.1 port. I liked the fact that the company has given plenty of ports on this device, and one can also custom-make the laptop to provide additional ports like a smart card reader and uSIM card tray.

Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 Laptop Display: Decent for Daily Use

• Display – 14-inch IPS touchscreen
• Resolution – Full HD (1920 x 1200 pixels)
• Refresh Rate – 60Hz

The Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 features a compact display that comes with Full HD+ resolution. Although it is an IPS touch panel, the display offers good colour reproduction that is accurate and punchy. However, compared to an OLED panel, it looks a bit weak. That said, thanks to the HDR support, you can still enjoy the OTT content on this machine.

The laptop comes loaded with a compact 14-inch Full HD IPS touch panel that delivers good results.

The 2-in-1 model has 300nits of peak brightness, which is apt for indoor environments, though the same cannot be said for outdoor conditions. However, the good thing here is that the display has a useful anti-reflective coating. Also, you get Corning Gorilla Glass Victus protection on the display, which is rare in this segment.

I wanted to have a higher screen refresh rate on this laptop. The laptop currently supports a 60Hz refresh rate, which is disappointing, considering the price tag. There were several instances where you would feel the need for a higher refresh rate for a smoother transition and scrolling experience.

Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 Laptop Keyboard, Touchpad, Speakers, and Webcam: There are some Hits and Misses

• Keyboard – Backlit keyboard
• Webcam – 1080p Hi-res camera
• Speakers – Quad Speakers

The Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 comes with a 79-key compact keyboard that offers mini-LED backlit. The keyboard is rightly positioned, which makes it comfortable to rest your palm. I like the keyboard as it has soft keys, which could be more mushy, and the whole typing experience feels effortless.

The Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 offers a compact yet sturdy keyboard.

You also get a dedicated Copilot hotkey, which is useful for quickly accessing AI-assistant. However, the backlit is slightly weak. The company says it uses mini-LED backlit technology that saves battery power. However, the backlit is not strong enough, in my opinion. Although you can see the keys in low light conditions, but I would liked a stronger light to enhance the visibility.

That said, the fingerprint sensor is reliable and works effortlessly during testing. The trackpad is smooth and offers good response. You also have gesture-swiping controls, which can be modified by navigating to Settings > Touchpad.

The latest Dell Latitude model also offers an FHD IR camera with Windows Hello support, which is good. You also get a physical privacy shutter. The camera quality is good for making video calls.

Moving on, the device also packs a quad-speaker setup. It comes with two top-firing speakers and two bottom-firing speakers. This results in good sound output, which is loud enough for a small room. The speakers deliver decent depth with rich bass and loud audio.

Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 Laptop Software: Special Focus on Privacy and Data Protection

• Operating System – Windows 11 Pro
• Other Features – Copilot Plus

The Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 runs on the Windows 11 Pro operating system. The device also comes loaded with a Copilot AI tool with multiple use cases. I used Copilot to summarise the articles for easy reading.

The laptop comes equipped with Windows 11 Pro along with CoPilot AI-assistant.

Apart from this, the company also offers some enterprise-grade privacy and security with its latest offering. First, you get off-host BIOS verification and indicators to reduce the risk of attacks. It also comes with secured component verification that helps you protect the laptop from threats. Moreover, it also comes with a Dell Optimizer application that offers a plethora of features.

The app acts as a one-stop solution to access different features of the laptop. The app is divided into Applications, Audio, Network, Power, and Presence Detection. The Applications allow you to optimise apps so that they can work efficiently.

The Power section helps you to manage the charging settings and thermal management of the laptop. Lastly, we have Presence Detection, which offers a plethora of privacy features. I liked Onlooker Detection, which blurs the screen content if someone is peeking at your laptop.

Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 Laptop Performance: Power-packed Performance

• Chipset – Intel Core Ultra 7 Processor 165U
• RAM – 16 GB LPDDR5X
• ROM – 512GB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD
• GPU – Intel Arc Graphics

Coming to the performance, the Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 offers lives up to the expectations. The laptop is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 vPro 165U processor that can handle most of the tasks you throw at it. You can also check the benchmark scores below:

The laptop glides effortlessly in day-to-day usage. You will not face much trouble even if you perform some heavy multitasking. Whether you use multiple Chrome windows with multiple tabs open, shuffle between Slacks and Outlook, or use Copilot to answer the query, the performance was stable throughout the review period. I also liked the thermal performance, as it was able to maintain cool temperatures even during prolonged usage.

Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 Laptop Battery: Impressive

• Battery Capacity – 3 Cell, 57 Wh (Typical)
• Fast Charging – 65W USB Type-C Adapter

The battery life of Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 is quite impressive. The laptop comes loaded with a 3-cell, 57Wh battery and supports 65W fast charging. With the Optimised profile, I got close to 7 hours of battery life with medium to heavy usage. The company also ships a compact 65W fast charger with the laptop, and it quickly charges the device from 20 percent to 100 percent in 50 minutes.

Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 Laptop Verdict

The latest Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 is a well-built professional laptop from the brand. The device offers a sturdy design language, though it might look a bit basic to some. The IPS display delivers punchy and accurate colours, though it is not as sharp as OLED panels. The performance is top-notch and it indeed comes with a plethora of privacy features that make it a reliable commercial laptop. That said, if you are looking for a no-frills laptop that delivers good battery life and reliable performance, then consider this one.

Goldman Sachs is looking to venture deeper into crypto-related services. In an interaction with Bloomberg News, Global Head of Digital Assets Mathew McDermott said that the new crypto platform currently under work would focus on facilitating traditional trading and crypto transactions on blockchain networks. The development comes days after pro-crypto billionaire Donald Trump was elected as the 47th President of the US – a decision that dramatically raised Bitcoin’s value to over $93,000 (roughly Rs. 78.5 lakh).

At present the New York-headquartered bank is in talks with various other fintech and Web3 firms, to equip the crypto platform with various features, the report by Bloomberg said.

This crypto platform, that could take between 12 to 18 months to launch, will be created as an individual company that would focus on catering to institutional investors and large-scale financial firms.

The interest of institutional investors in crypto has risen exponentially. In a recent conversation with Gadgets360, Catherine Chen, the Head of VIP and institutional investors at Binance said that the launch of crypto ETFs in the US and other parts of the world have made these virtual digital assets more accessible for big investors to experiment with, through traditional market places, without going through the efforts of signing up on crypto exchanges.

A report by Goldman revealed that crypto investments by family businesses have spiked from 16 percent in 2021 to 32 percent in 2023.

According to McDermott, the idea behind Goldman working on this Web3 project is to offer large-scale investors and family businesses a crypto platform that is ‘industry owned’ — essentially linked to an established traditional banking player.

Moving forward, the investment bank is also looking to resume lending services backed by Bitcoin, according to the report.

Goldman Sachs has been dabbling in crypto-related services for a while now. In May 2022, the bank offered its first ever Bitcoin-backed loan to Coinbase.

Microsoft talked up new tools on Tuesday aimed at encouraging programmers to build AI-focused technology into Windows software as it races against Alphabet, Amazon.com and Apple to dominate the emerging field.

At a developer conference in Seattle, Chief Executive Satya Nadella promoted new application programming interfaces, or APIs, that make it easier for developers to tap in to AI technology offered by Microsoft.

The company said 1.8 million developers are now using Github Copilot, Microsoft’s generative AI tool that helps computer programmers be more productive.

“What stands out to me as I look back at this past year, is how you all as developers have taken all of these capabilities and are applying them, quite frankly, to change the world around us,” Nadella said during his keynote address at the Build conference.

Microsoft detailed new features for its Copilot AI software that helps business productivity applications such as email and its Teams video and text chat product. At its developer conference last week, Alphabet’s Google unveiled a similar batch of AI tools to help people with office applications.

Microsoft announced details of its new developer tools last week.

Shares of Microsoft were up 1.2 percent at $430.67 on Tuesday afternoon after hitting a record high of $432.97 earlier in the session. Microsoft’s stock has now gained 14 percent in 2024.

Also aimed at developers, Microsoft said last Thursday it would offer its cloud computing customers a platform of AMD AI chips that will compete with Nvidia, whose graphics processing units have become the gold standard for AI computing.

The platform of AMD chips created by Microsoft uses networking technology made by Nvidia called Infiniband to string the processors together.

OpenAI’s new GPT4-o model, which runs on Microsoft’s infrastructure, is 12 times cheaper for developers to use in their software than earlier versions of the technology, Microsoft’s chief technology officer Kevin Scott said.

Microsoft is the largest investor in OpenAI and uses some of the AI heavyweight’s technology in its own products.

On Monday, Microsoft debuted a line of Copilot+ personal computers with AI features such as software that lets users search through their past actions in nearly any software. The new computers feature Arm-based processors made by Qualcomm.

© Thomson Reuters 2024