Dell Latitude 5500 review – it will certainly enhance your business experience

Hey guys, are you into business laptops? Well, you must be, if you have clicked on this review in the first place. So the Latitude 5500 is a pretty promising one on paper. The entire Latitude 5000 family is, as it provides a great number of security options for a respectable price. While it is by no means a budget laptop, now we are going to see how Dell justifies that.

As far as the configurations go, you can go for the all-budget Core i3-8145U or pay more to get more – the Core i5-8265U or vPro models – Core i5-8365U and Core i7-8665U, which quite honestly, are pretty close to each other in terms of performance.

Additionally, if you need any graphics enhancement – Dell offers the AMD Radeon 540X.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-latitude-15-5500/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Dell Latitude 15 5500 - Specs

  • LG WJDPN-156WFC (LGD05E6)
  • Color accuracy  4.5  3.8
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 8000GB SSD + up to 500GB HDD
  • RAM
  • up to 64GB
  • OS
  • Windows OS, Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, No OS, Linux
  • Battery
  • 68Wh, 4-cell, 42Wh, 3-cell
  • Body material
  • Plastic / Polycarbonate, Carbon
  • Dimensions
  • 359 x 236 x 20 mm (14.13" x 9.29" x 0.79")
  • Weight
  • 1.82 kg (4 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 3x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), DisplayPort
  • HDMI
  • 1.4b
  • Card reader
  • Micro SD
  • Ethernet LAN
  • 10/100/1000 Mbit/s
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.0
  • Audio jack
  • Headphone/ Microphone combo
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • optional
  • Web camera
  • HD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Digital-array microphones
  • Speakers
  • 2x 2W
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

What’s in the box?

Inside the packaging, you will find the laptop, hidden (not very successfully) in a non-static transparent bag. In a part of the box that is separated by cardboard, you will find the 65W charging brick.


Design and construction

Similarly to its brothers from the Latitude 5000 line-up, the Latitude 5500 uses carbon fiber composites in its build. Moreover, Dell states the material is made from 16.5% recycled materials, which is great for the sustainability of the environment. All of that is great, but what is even greater is the 1.82 kg weight and the 20 mm profile. This makes the otherwise industrial-looking machine, feel light and easy for handling.

As it shares pretty much the same body as the Latitude 5501, the laptop we test today is also unable to open its lid without the help of two hands. Here, however, is where the push for better privacy starts with the Latitude 5500 – it has a hardware shutter on top of the camera.

Then we have the base of the laptop. Sadly, the issue from the Latitude 5501 is present here as well – the material around the keyboard bends ever so slightly when you press upon it. While it was kind of a problem with the aforementioned device, we can kind of forgive it with the Latitude 5500, because it retails a couple of hundred bucks less.

Nevertheless, the keyboard is great – it features a full-layout, including the Number Pad section. The keys themselves are well-spaced and they possess a long travel and clicky feedback. All-in-all a great one for typing. Additionally, you can see the so-called “Trackstick”. We personally don’t know why Dell is ashamed to call it a nipple, as it is exactly that, but this is a topic for another conversation.

It pairs really well with the proprietary keys above the touchpad, which also has buttons beneath it. In general, this trackpad is really nice – one of the better ones on the market.

Turning the laptop upside-down reveals a ventilation grill and the speaker cut-outs. Traditionally with these laptops, the hot air escapes the system from the left side of the machine.

Ports

In contrast to the Latitude 5501, which used a 120W charger, connected to the USB Type-C port, here, we have the barrel-style plug. Then, of course, is the free USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 2) connector and a USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) port. After that is the aforementioned exhaust grill, as well as a Smart Card reader. On the right, you can see the RJ-45 connector, followed by an HDMI port and two USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) ports – one of them has PowerShare support. Then there is the headphone jack, as well as a MicroSD card reader and an optional SIM card tray.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

Props to Dell for keeping the design of the screws with this laptop. There were 8 of them put onto the chassis and when you do unscrew them, they stay attached to the bottom plate which makes it practically impossible to lose them.

Its cooling is very similar to the one we saw on the Latitude 5501, with the only difference seen only in the heat pipe. It is now slightly narrower to save some money and weight since the ULV processors are nearly not as power-hungry as the H-series.

Memory-wise there are two RAM DIMMs that support up to 32GB of DDR4 memory, while the storage comprises a single M.2 slot. It is also able to carry PCIe x4 speeds.

Lastly, we have the huge 68Wh battery pack, which gave the Latitude 5501 the great battery life. We expect this laptop to perform even better in terms of battery life figures.


Display quality

Dell Latitude 5500 is equipped with an IPS panel, model number LG WJDPN-156WFC (LGD05E6) – the same seen on the Latitude 5501. Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution 1920 х 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 142 ppi, and a pitch of 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 60cm (24″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).

Viewing angles are excellent. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

The measured maximum brightness of 242 nits in the middle of the screen and 231 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 8%, in the bottom right corner The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 6290K – warmer than the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 6260K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.

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. The contrast ratio is fine – 1160:1.

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 5500’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers only 53% 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 5500 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 = 21 ms.


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 5500’s display doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels at any point. This makes it comfortable for long work periods, without harming your eyes 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

This notebook’s display has an IPS panel with a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, good contrast ratio, and adequate default settings. Moreover, it doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment. On the downside, it covers only 53% of sRGB.

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 5500 configurations with 15.6″ FHD IPS LG WJDPN-156WFC (LGD05E6).

*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 5500’s speakers produce a good quality sound. Its low, mid and high tones are clear of deviations.


Drivers

All of the drivers and software utilities for the Latitude 5500 can be downloaded from here: https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/latitude-15-5500-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. As we mentioned, the Latitude 5500 is equipped with a 68Wh battery unit.

Its behemoth battery gave it an incredible battery life – 17 hours and a half of Web browsing and 14 hours of video playback. It will easily last you through one or even two workdays away from the plug.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.


CPU options

You have the choice of basically three processors. The Core i3-8145U, Core i5-8265U, Core i5-8365U, and Core i7-8665U. the latter two are just vPro versions of their originals, which means they offer more security options and a slightly higher clock speed.

Dell Latitude 15 5500 CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the Dell Latitude 15 5500 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which Dell Latitude 15 5500 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.


GPU options

Here, in the general case, you are going to stick with the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620. However, if you need a slight edge in the graphics department, you can get the laptop with an AMD Radeon 540X.


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 55003.39 GHz (B+112%) @ 90°C2.54 GHz (B+59%) @ 89°C2.11 GHz (B+32%) @ 74°C
ASUS X5092.56 GHz (B+60%) @ 75°C2.33 GHz (B+46%) @ 97°C1.95 GHz (B+22%) @ 94°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

In a typical fashion for a business laptop, the Latitude 5500 has shown a decent cooling capacity. It started off the test with an extremely high clock speed of 3.39 GHz. As it gradually fell down to 2.11 GHz, the temperature stabilized at 74C, which is pretty cool, compared to some of its competitors.

Comfort during full load

During extreme CPU load, the laptop maintained relatively quiet in terms of fan noise, while the hottest spot was just over 39C.


Verdict

There is nothing unexpected from this laptop. Our tests proved right what we were thinking when we got the device in our hands at the beginning – it is pretty much the same laptop as the Latitude 5501. With that said, we don’t mean to discredit the Latitude 5500. Totally the opposite in fact.

It is very interesting when manufacturers offer two versions of the same device – one with a ULV CPU and one with a full-fledged H-series CPU. Generally, we would recommend the latter as it offers more performance, especially if you are doing CPU-intensive tasks, like video and 3D rendering. However, if your aim is mainly office work and short term tasks then the ULV processors are perfectly fine for the job.

This notebook’s display has an IPS panel with a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, good contrast ratio, and adequate default settings. Moreover, it doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment. On the downside, it covers only 53% of sRGB.

One of the major advantages of using such a laptop is the battery life, as the Latitude 5500 goes more than twice longer on battery power than its more powerful twin. The figures are 17 hours and a half of Web browsing and 14 hours of video playback.

Of course, there are some setbacks as the barrel plug charger (we saw that this laptop can be powered from the USB Type-C connector), as well as a lack of a SATA 2.5″ drive option. Nevertheless, we think that the M.2 PCIe x4 slot definitely makes up for that as it offers significantly fast storage plus it has an optional LTE support.

All of the aforementioned is why we decided to give this laptop an Editor’s choice award – in our view, it is deserved.

Pros

  • Extremely long battery life
  • A lightweight carbon fiber body
  • PCIe x4 support
  • Optional LTE connectivity
  • Super snappy experience in daily work
  • Good contrast ratio and comfortable viewing angles
  • Its display doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment


Cons

  • Higher-end models lack a 2.5″ SATA drive slot
  • Covers only 53% of the sRGB gamut

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-latitude-15-5500/

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JohnST
JohnST
4 years ago

In 2019, a top US manufacturer to offer a TN display on a 1000-dollar notebook is a good idea.

Elvis Van
Elvis Van
4 years ago
Reply to  JohnST

Are you being sarcastic?

John
John
4 years ago

so where exactly is the sdxc card slot?

Alexander
Alexander
4 years ago

When are the results for the display of this laptop?