So, it feels like Dell is starting over with the naming of their Latitude brand. More specifically the numbers they use. This resulted in the newborn Dell Latitude 14 7400 for example. Surprise, surprise – this is exactly the device we have with us today.
Make no mistakes, guys, this laptop sits deep in the premium segment. It starts at $1299, but you would surely want a higher spec configuration, as at this price you only get 4GB of RAM and a 768p display. So, Dell is basically pushing you to get the $1499 version with 8GB of RAM and a Full HD IPS display – not cool, Dell. Either way, let’s see how does the device fare against some of its brightest competition.
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-latitude-14-7400/
Contents
Specs Sheet
Dell Latitude 14 7400 - Specs
All Dell Latitude 14 7400 configurations
What’s in the box?
Inside the not so premium box (perhaps Dell has focused the resources in their device), we found only a 65W power brick, some paper manuals and the Latitude 14 7400 itself.
Design and construction
Similarly, to the Latitude 13 7390, the Latitude 14 7400 comes with a different choice of materials. With that said, we have to keep in mind that the materials are color-dependent. This means, that if you get the silver version of the laptop, you are going to have an aluminum device, however, if you go for the black one, it is going to be made out of carbon fiber. Obviously, from the images, our unit was of the latter type. It weighs 1.35 kg and measures at 16.9mm on its thinnest side, up to 18.2mm on the thickest.
Opening the lid with one hand is possible, however, as soon as you reach 90 degrees, the hinge feels like it stucks and the bottom side lifts up. This is probably because Dell has implemented a solution, seen on many of the latest ASUS ultrabooks – the lid is used as a lever to lift the backside of the base to give it more breathing space. However, we feel that the technology is not very refined, because the screen ends up too far away when you push it enough for the base to lift up.
Its keyboard is clicky and the travel is … satisfactory – somewhere in between. Additionally, the size of the keycaps is smaller than what we see on the Lenovo ThinkPad T490s but they are decently spaced. Further below, you can see a touchpad that is extremely accurate and has dedicated buttons – yay!
Let’s turn the laptop upside down, and we’ll see a very substantial area taken by the ventilation grills, while the speakers are on the front side of the plate – firing against the desk.
Ports
The Latitude 14 7400 charges via a barrel-styled plug. It is placed on the left side, and right next to it you can find a Thunderbolt port (they could have used that one to charge the thing up… just saying), then there is an HDMI 1.4a port as well as a USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) port. There is also an optional SmartCard reader that would sit on the left side as well. Then on the right, there is another USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) port, a MicroSD card reader (underneath it there is the other optional feature – the LTE card slot) and it finishes with a 3.5mm audio jack.
Disassembly and upgrade options
Dell Latitude 14 7400 happens to be a design masterpiece from the inside as well. In order to reach those insides, you first need to unscrew 8 Phillips-head screws. Thankfully, they never leave the bottom plate, but yet stay attached to it even when you unscrew them.
From the image below you can see that the processor and the RAM DIMMs are placed very close together. We are happy to see two slots for memory that support up to 32GB of DDR4 in total. As of the cooling solution – nothing amusing – just the ordinary design with a single heat pipe and a single fan.
The bottom half of the chassis is taken by the pretty beefy 60Wh battery pack and the M.2 NVMe slot.
Display quality
Dell Latitude 14 7400 has a Full HD display, model number LG R6D86-140WF9 (LGD05DA). Its diagonal is 14″ (35.56 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 157 ppi, their pitch – 0.161 x 0.161 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 56 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).
Its viewing angles are excellent. We have provided images at 45 degrees to evaluate quality.
The maximum measured brightness is 311 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 294 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 16%, in the top right corner. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6780K (average) – slightly warmer than the 6500K optimum for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 6700K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective.
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 very good – 2000:1 (1700:1).
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. 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 14 7400’s color gamut coverage.
Its display covers 98% 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 14 7400 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).
The next figure shows how well the display can reproduce 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 = 24 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 14 7400’s display is not PW-modulated, which means it doesn’t flicker at any level. This makes it comfortable for use during long periods of use.
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.
Conclusions
Dell Latitude 14 7400’s display has a Full HD resolution, great contrast ratio, comfortable viewing angles, and very wide color coverage. Moreover, it doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels. On the downside, it is not very uniform in terms of luminance across its surface.
Buy our profiles
Since our profiles are tailored for each display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Dell Latitude 14 7400 configurations with 14.0″ LG R6D86-140WF9 (LGD05A) (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.
Sound
Dell Latitude 14 7400 has not bad sounding speakers. Their low and mid-range have some deviations, while the high tones are crisp and clear.
Drivers
You can get all of the drivers and utilities for the Latitude 14 7400 on Dell’s official website: https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/latitude-14-7400-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. Our very unit is equipped with a relatively bulky for a 14-inch laptop 60Wh battery pack.
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.
CPU options
What is driving the Latitude 14 7400 are Intel’s Whiskey Lake processors – the Core i5-8265U and the Core i7-8565, as well as their vPro versions.
Results are from the Cinebench 20 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
Dell Latitude 14 7400 CPU variants
Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the Dell Latitude 14 7400 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which Dell Latitude 14 7400 model is the best bang for your buck.
Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.
Results are from the Cinebench 20 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
GPU options
The only option for you here is the Intel UHD Graphcis 620.
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gaming tests
| CS:GO | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings) | HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 31 fps | – fps | – fps |
| DOTA 2 | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings) | HD 1080p, High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 53 fps | 28 fps | – fps |
| Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) | HD 768p, Normal (Check settings) | HD 768p, High (Check settings) | HD 768p, Very High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 25 fps | – 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 sec | 0:15 – 0:30 sec | 10:00 – 15:00 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dell Latitude 14 7400 | 3.05 GHz (B+91%)@ 97°C | 2.44 GHz (B+53%)@ 93°C | 1.97 GHz (B+23%)@ 79°C |
| Lenovo ThinkBook 13s | 2.76 GHz (B+73%)@ 75°C | 2.74 GHz (B+71%)@ 84°C | 2.11 GHz (B+32%)@ 74°C |
| Lenovo ThinkPad T490s | 3.43 GHz (B+114%)@ 91°C | 2.69 GHz (B+68%)@ 91°C | 2.19 GHz (B+37%)@ 80°C |
| ASUS ZenBook 13 UX333 | 3.12 GHz (B+95%)@ 89°C | 2.50 GHz (B+56%)@ 95°C | 2.27 GHz (B+42%)@ 83°C |
| HP ProBook 450 G6 | 2.69 GHz (B+59%)@ 64°C | 2.53 GHz (B+60%)@ 68°C | 2.09 GHz (B+31%)@ 71°C |
| Acer Swift 3 (SF314-56G) | 2.67 GHz (B+67%)@ 93°C | 2.16 GHz (B+35%)@ 86°C | 1.66 GHz (B+4%)@ 71°C |
Dell Latitude 14 7400 boasts a lifted base, that should enhance its cooling “substantially”, as we saw on the latest ZenBook devices. However, as you can see from the table above, it doesn’t really sit this way. First, the Latitude 14 7400 gets up to heat very quickly. At the first part of the test, we measured 97C on the CPU, which, as you can imagine, is extremely hot. Further along the way, the temperature decreases by 4C, while the frequencies go down by more than 600 MHz. Fast forward to the end of the test and the frequency is now 1.97 GHz and the temperature went down to 79C. Interestingly, the Lenovo ThinkPad T490s was working at higher clock speeds and lower temperatures, while at the same time being thinner and lighter than its counterpart.
Verdict
Let’s put it straight – Dell Latitude 14 7400 is an amazing device. Yes, you need to pay a premium to get it, but you also get pretty much what you pay for – optional IR face recognition, as well as a fingerprint reader, a choice of aluminum and carbon fiber build, both resulting in a balanced, feature-packed laptop.
It has some shortcomings, of course. Keep in mind that most of the shortcomings of this laptop are mainly referred to its high retail price, which makes it look like nitpicking. The reason for that is… because it is nitpicking. First – its keyboard is good for typing, but the key travel feels a little short. Then, there is some slight bend on the base when you are more emotional while typing.
Additionally, the laptop tends to heat up a little bit. Despite the base-lift hinge mechanism it utilizes, it still can’t fare very well with the temperatures of its processor. On the bright side, this results in a good performance, especially in day-to-day work tasks, where it really shines.
Quality-wise the 1080p IPS panel is on the premium side – it is fairly bright, has an exceptional contrast ratio and covers 98% of sRGB. Additionally, the colors are accurate enough and it doesn’t use PWM to adjust the brightness level. Sadly, though, there is some light bleed of the top right corner of the screen.
Now the time has come for the biggest feature of this laptop – its battery life. We were able to get… wait for it… 20 hours and a half of Web browsing, as well as more than 14 hours of video playback. This catapults it straight onto the top step of the podium of our Best Battery Life chart.
Last but not least, we should note that the Carbon Fiber look is sick. And when we set aside the slight bendy base, the build quality is on point. However, we feel that the Lenovo ThinkPad T490s is a better all-rounder of a device.
Pros
- Good performance in short tasks
- Comfortable for typing keyboard
- Good build quality with a choice between aluminum and carbon fiber
- Display doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels
- Incredibly high contrast ratio
- Optional IR face recognition and fingerprint reader
- Amazing battery life
Cons
- Gets warm pretty quickly
- Keycaps are on the smaller side
- High retail price
- Some unevenness in the luminosity
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-latitude-14-7400/
The review says: “you can find a Thunderbolt port (they could have used that one to charge the thing up… just saying)”
and then in the specs it says: 1x USB Type-C 3.1 (3.1 Gen 2), Thunderbolt 3, Power Delivery (PD).
So my question is: does it support USB-PD or not?
It supports charging via the Thunderbolt port.
Earlier models supported charging via the Thunderbolt port and I would expect that to be the case with this model as Dell sells docks that use the Thunderbolt port. The Dock, WD19TB is listed as being compatible with this laptop.
Great review, however, I felt that you could have elaborated on the touchpad. The Latitude 7480 uses an ALPs touchpad with no precision drivers and is pretty horrendous. Can you confirm whether the touchpad has Microsoft Precision drivers and whether it’s made by ALPs or Synaptics?
Ethernet LAN port listed but there’s NONE unfortunately as can be seen on the provided photos. Other then that fine review – thanks.