Dell Latitude 3301 review – a surprisingly good specimen with great battery life

What do you value most in your laptop? The gamers would answer – performance. Content creators would probably say, that it is a brilliant display they are after. However, in the business realm, there is no single thing that qualifies as “most important”. People look for battery life, security, usability, and not on the last place – style.

Well, the laptop we’re going to review today clearly doesn’t lack the latter. It has an aluminum body, which is incredibly lightweight. It also features a potentially striking pair of Whiskey Lake processors and an optional GeForce MX250. Let’s waste no more time, and check if this laptop works as well as it looks!

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-latitude-13-3301/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Dell Latitude 13 3301 - Specs

  • BOE BOE07A0
  • Color accuracy  4.2  2.5
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 2000GB SSD
  • RAM
  • up to 16GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Home
  • Battery
  • 4-cell, 52Wh, 4-cell, 45Wh, 4-cell
  • Dimensions
  • 307.6 x 204.5 x 16.8 mm (12.11" x 8.05" x 0.66")
  • Weight
  • 1.18 kg (2.6 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), DisplayPort
  • HDMI
  • 1.4b
  • Card reader
  • Micro SD
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.0
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5 mm combo
  • Micro SIM Reader
  • {Optional} Smart Card Reader
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera
  • HD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • optional
  • Microphone
  • Digital-array microphones
  • Speakers
  • 2x 2,5W, MaxxAudio Pro
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

What’s in the box?

Inside the package, this laptop comes in, we found a 65W power brick, as well as the mandatory papers and manuals.


Design and construction

As we mentioned the Latitude 3301 has an aluminum chassis that weighs only 1.18 kg and has a profile of 16.8mm. Honestly, it feels like a feather in the hand, and the premium material of build is very nice to the touch. As of the sturdiness of the notebook, there is something left for improvement in the next version of the device, but it is better than the Acer Swift 5 Pro (SF514-54GT) – another thin and light ultrabook.

Interestingly, the lid opens with a single hand all the way to the end – a pleasant surprise. Additionally, it features the same mechanism, seen on the latest Dells to hit the market. This would mean that it uses the lid to lift the base off the ground (or at least its backside) so that it draws air more easily. However, the base starts lifting from around 90-degrees and reaches its maximum amplitude at the widest position. Unlike the ErgoLift hinge of ASUS, this is not very efficient.

The next thing of interest is the base. Following the trend on the lid, it also has an anodized finish on top. While the keyboard has clicky feedback and a decent key travel, we noticed that it has pretty small keycaps. This definitely needs some getting used to, especially from people with sausage fingers.

If you haven’t noticed already, the power button doubles as a fingerprint reader. Additionally, the touchpad has a decent area, a glass surface, and great tracking capabilities.

On the bottom plate, there are the speaker cut-outs and a ventilation grill. Expectedly, the hot air escapes from in between the base and the lid and is directed towards the bottom bezel of the screen.

Ports

On the left side, there is a power plug, as well as an HDMI connector, a USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 1) for data transfer and DisplayPort output, and a MicroSD card reader. Then, the right side comprises only a single USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) port and a 3.5mm headphone jack.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

This laptop is extremely easy to take apart. You only need to remove 7 Phillips-head screws, which by the way, stay attached to the bottom panel after you unscrew them. Then, just pop the plate out of the way with the help of a plastic pry tool.

Its cooling comprises a single heat pipe, a heat spreader, and a fan. Nothing spectacular, honestly.

Despite the easy removal of the bottom late, sadly, there is only one thing that can be upgraded, and that is the SSD via a single M.2 PCIe x4 slot. This means, that the memory is soldered to the motherboard, and you should give some thought on the amount of RAM before making the purchase.

While the battery size is not huge, it is pretty decent for a 13-inch ultrabook – 45Wh.


Display quality

Dell Latitude 3301 is equipped with a Full HD touchscreen IPS panel, BOE BOE07A0. Its diagonal is 13.3-inch (33.78 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080p. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 166 ppi, their pitch – 0.15 х 0.15 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 50 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

Viewing angles are comfortable. We offer images at different angles to evaluate the quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 344 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and also 323 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of just 11%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 7540K – colder than the 6500K temperature for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 7140K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 41% Brightness (White level = 142 cd/m2, Black level = 0.15 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is excellent – 940:1 (820:1 after profiling).

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Dell Latitude 3301’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 89% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of Dell Latitude 3301 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 31 ms.


Health impact – PWM / Blue Light

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Dell Latitude 3301’s display backlight flickers at all brightness levels, except the maximum. Sadly, it also has a frequency of 200 Hz, which makes it especially harmful in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

Dell Latitude 3301’s display has an IPS panel with a Full HD resolution. Naturally, its viewing angles are wide and contrast ratio – good. Additionally, it covers 89% of sRGB, which results in a punchy image. However, in terms of flickering, the laptop uses aggressive PWM at all brightness levels and with a very low frequency. Thankfully, though, our Health-Guard profile deals with that.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Dell Latitude 3301 configurations with 13.3″ BOE BOE07A0 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS panel.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

Dell Latitude 3301 produces a sound with good quality. Its low, mid and high tones are clear of deviations.


Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/latitude-13-3301-laptop/drivers

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. We monitored a decent battery life for a 45Wh package.

Web surfing will settle you at around 12 hours, while video playback will drain the battery for 12 hours and a half.


CPU options

There are several processor options, as far as we know – the Core i3-8145U, Core i5-8265U and the Core i7-8565U and quite possibly the Core i7-8665U, which is the vPro version of the last.


GPU options

GPU-wise there are only the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620 and the NVIDIA GeForce MX250 with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.


Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS53 fps29 fps– fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS77 fps36 fps– fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i5-8265U (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Dell Latitude 33012.44 GHz (B+53%) @ 89°C2.27 GHz (B+42%) @ 94°C1.96 GHz (B+23%) @ 83°C
Lenovo Ideapad L340 (15″)3.27 GHz (B+104%)@ 72°C1.99 GHz (B+24%)@ 60°C2.01 GHz (B+26%)@ 65°C
ASUS VivoBook S15 S5322.96 GHz (B+85%) @ 75°C2.95 GHz (B+84%) @ 90°C2.17 GHz (B+36%) @ 68°C
Lenovo ThinkBook 13s2.76 GHz (B+73%)@ 75°C2.74 GHz (B+71%)@ 84°C2.11 GHz (B+32%)@ 74°C
Lenovo ThinkPad T490s3.43 GHz (B+114%)@ 91°C2.69 GHz (B+68%)@ 91°C2.19 GHz (B+37%)@ 80°C
HP ProBook 450 G62.69 GHz (B+59%)@ 64°C2.53 GHz (B+60%)@ 68°C2.09 GHz (B+31%)@ 71°C

It’s petty to see that this device’s cooling is really struggling. Just make a direct comparison to the Lenovo ThinkBook 13s, which maintains a frequency of above 2.00 GHz and works at a lower temperature, at the same time.

Comfort during full load

Pretty warm on the outside, isn’t it – 46C.


Verdict

If you need something premium that is light to carry and will last you through an entire workday, the Latitude 3301 is definitely for you. We think that it is extremely important for a business laptop to have been able to last at least 8 hours on a single charge, as you are not always situated in your office doing your casual day job. Sometimes, you need to travel, or have a meeting to show off your work. Certainly, you wouldn’t need to carry a charger with you.

As of the performance of in CPU-intensive tasks, well, it is not great. To be honest, it is quite on the bottom end for the hardware it packs and the cooling is just not up to the task. However, let’s not forget we are talking about an ultrabook that is meant for things different than rendering a video or compilating a large program.

Dell Latitude 3301’s display has an IPS panel (BOE BOE07A0) with a Full HD resolution. Naturally, its viewing angles are wide and contrast ratio – good. Additionally, it covers 89% of sRGB, which results in a punchy image. However, in terms of flickering, the laptop uses aggressive PWM at all brightness levels and with a very low frequency. Thankfully, though, our Health-Guard profile deals with that.

Also, the I/O is a bit limited, as it features only one USB Type-A port and the Type-C connector lacks Thunderbolt certification. On the bright side, though, you can still output pictures from it, and there is a MicroSD card slot hanging around if you need it.

The mixed feelings continue with the upgradability. It has an M.2 slot that supports PCIe x4 drives, but there is no RAM expansion… Basically, you are stuck with what you get.

Given the fact that the PWM issue is fixable and the performance is not very important (in our opinion) to its target group, we feel that we can recommend the Latitude 3301. If you need something similar, but prefer to be blown away by benchmark scores, then the ASUS ZenBook 14 UX434 can do you good. Also, the Lenovo ThinkBook 13s is a great pick.

Pros

  • Very good battery life
  • Very fast fingerprint reader
  • USB Type-C can output DisplayPort and has a MicroSD card reader
  • Its display has comfortable viewing angles and good contrast ratio (BOE BOE07A0)
  • Covers 89% of sRGB (BOE BOE07A0)
  • Has an ultralightweight all-aluminum body


Cons

  • Below-average performance and insufficient cooling
  • Uses harmful PWM to adjust its brightness level (BOE BOE07A0) (our Health-Guard profile fixes this issue)
  • Memory is soldered to the motherboard

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-latitude-13-3301/

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pwm is bad
pwm is bad
4 years ago

The text says 200 Hz PWM and the graph shows 200 KHz PWM so am confused. I have had 200 Hz PWM before and that is very disturbing.

Nikolay Palaozov
Admin
4 years ago
Reply to  pwm is bad

Hi,

Yes, you’re right – it’s 200 Hz, the graph is already updated.