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On the down side, the Latitude's touch screen is inaccurate and getting the pen out of its slot can be a hair-pulling exercise. I needed a key to pry out the stylus and once I did, I had trouble tapping on small icons. Yes, the Latitude 5420 is more beast than beauty, but that's sort of the point. From the bumpers covering each corner to its magnesium-alloy materials, this laptop's utilitarian design may as well have been contrived in a secret military lab. Exposed screws, geometric angles and chunky bezels assure the user that no expense was spared in creating the Latitude 5420's practically indestructible chassis. 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 If the audio quality isn't to your liking, the Latitude 5420 comes with Dell's MaxxAudioPro software, which lets you adjust sound frequencies using a simple EQ interface. If the 14-inch, 1080p touch screen display on our Latitude 5420 were any brighter, I might have needed to put on some sunglasses.
As a part of the Latitude 5000 series, this notebook is built with environmentally-conscious bioplastics. It weighs 1.40 kg and has a profile of 19.3-20.9mm. This makes it far from the thinnest devices on the market, but we feel it is worth it (later you will see why). From the bumpers covering each corner to its magnesium-alloy materials, this laptop's utilitarian design may as well have been contrived in a secret military lab. These results come with an important caveat. Dell has updated the Latitude 5420 with models that offer new Intel Core processors and Intel Iris Xe graphics. We haven’t tested the Latitude 5420 in this configuration, but we have tested laptops with similar hardware. We expect the new models to provide a small boost in processor performance and a significant boost in graphics performance. With Intel ® Adaptix™ Technology, prioritize your most important apps, so they open faster and perform better.
Design in every detail
I typed at 119 words per minute with a 95 percent accuracy rate on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which matches my average on both accounts. The Latitude 5420 Rugged runs Windows 10 Pro, an operating system meant for enterprise users. And yet, bloatware apps like Candy Crush Saga rear their ugly head once again. Other pre-installed apps courtesy of Microsoft include Netflix, Fitbit Coach and Xbox.
Take charge: Keep working with outstanding battery life plus intelligent settings to preserve power when you're running low. Choose from a 42WHr battery for lighter weight or a larger 63Whr battery for longer run time. Get longer battery life when you choose the Super Low Power panel, which consumes less power than a standard display without impacting the brightness of the screen. We were pleasantly surprised by the performance of this notebook. At least regarding the computational power. It seems like Dell has diverged more power to the CPU cores, rather than the GPU ones, which results in a subpar graphics performance.The Latitude 5420 we tested had Intel’s Core i7-10610U quad-core processor. It’s an upgrade from the Core i3 processor found in the base configuration, but it certainly didn’t feel like it. And although its 512GB PCIe NVMe Class 40 SSD couldn't keep up with the category average (526.7 megabytes per second) on our File Transfer Test, it still duplicated 4.97GB of mixed-media files in a reasonably fast time of 10 seconds for a rate of 508 MBps. The fans inside the Latitude 5420 did a reasonable job of keeping this beast cool, but the underside warmed to uncomfortable temperatures. After playing a 15-minute HD video in full screen, the bottom of the laptop, near the hinge, reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Fortunately, that was the only location on the laptop that breached our 95-degree comfort threshold. The Latitude's touchpad peaked at just 86 degrees, while the center of the keyboard remained a bearable 94 degrees. Apple Silicon still has it beat, though. The MacBook Pro we recently tested handled 14 hours of our battery life, a full four and a half hours more than the Latitude 5420. The speakers sound powerful Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.
New ExpressConnect automatically joins the strongest access point in the office and directs bandwidth to critical applications, wherever you work. The Latitude 5420's display is easily visible outdoors and under bright lights, thanks to its 923 nits of maximum brightness. To put that into context, the average premium laptop's display illuminates to just 329 nits. Viewing angles are also strong; I had no problems reading text no matter where I stood in relation to the laptop. The Latitude 5420 just beat out the average premium laptop (21:48) on our Handbrake test, converting a 4K video to 1080p resolution in 21 minutes and 23 seconds. For that reason, the Latitude 5420 Rugged is the better option for most people, and a highly recommended laptop for the world's toughest jobs. In brief, stay away from the Dell Latitude 5420. This is not the work-from-home laptop you’re looking for.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. 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. Nothing seems wrong with the Latitude 5420’s touchpad at a glance. It looks spacious and its plastic feel, although not enjoyable, is hardly unusual for a Windows business laptop. performance is even worse. The Core i7-10610U has Intel’s ancient UHD graphics solution. It’s entirely inadequate for modern games or 3D applications. You shouldn’t expect to play any 3D game sold in the last five years, and even big budget titles from a decade ago can struggle at higher detail settings.
Dell Optimizer extends runtime and improves battery performance by adapting to your patterns. ExpressCharge Boost delivers up to 35% charge in about 20 minutes, or up to 80% charge in an hour with ExpressCharge. * The display covers 110 percent of the sRGB color gamut, according to our colorimeter measurements. Although that's slightly below the premium laptop average (117 percent), the panel never looked dull. Armed to the teeth with high-end components, the 5420 Rugged impressed in our performance benchmarks, scoring a 16,054 on the Geekbench 4.1 test. That strong result tops the premium laptop category average (13,113) by a large margin. Turn the laptop upside down, and you will find the ventilation grills and the speaker cutouts. Unfortunately for left-handed people, the heat exhaust is placed on the left side of the notebook. Its 1920 x 1080 resolution, matte display coat, and good contrast ratio make a decent first impression. To its credit, the display works well for its narrow intended purpose. It’s readable, resists glare, and is bright enough to use in any office.
Modern connectivity is provided by twin Thunderbolt 4 ports with Power Delivery and DisplayPort mode. These versatile ports can connect to a variety of USB-C or Thunderbolt devices, can charge the laptop, and can power an external monitor.
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