Dell Latitude E7240 review

Dell recently announced a newly formed pair of Latitude 7000 Series Ultrabooks, and the Latitude E7240 is the first to land in the PC Pro Labs. Following in the business-friendly footsteps of its predecessors, Dell has packed the Latitude E7240’s sturdy, 12.5in chassis with the latest Haswell technology and a range of office-friendly features.

Where other Ultrabooks tout eye-catching designs, the Latitude E7240 is tastefully reserved. The stiff-feeling lid is clad in brushed metal, while the keyboard and screen bezels are comprised of smooth, tough black plastics. There is a little flex in the base, but nothing worrying, and the metal skeleton running around the keyboard’s circumference gives some reassuring protection against accidental knocks or drops. It’s no lightweight as a result, though – the whole package weighs 1.44kg.

On the inside, the Latitude E7240 pairs Intel’s Haswell CPUs with solid-state storage. The basic £799 exc VAT model has a Core i5-4200U CPU, 4GB of DDR3L RAM and a 128GB SSD. However, our review model is the range-topping £1,259 exc VAT model, which has a top-flight Core i7-4600U CPU with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.

Not surprisingly, performance soars as a result, and the Dell achieved a lightning-quick 0.73 in our Real World Benchmarks. The Lite-On SSD definitely plays its part here: its sequential read and write speeds reached 476MB/sec and 323MB/sec respectively; scores we’ve only seen bettered by the PCI Express SSD in Apple’s MacBook Air 13in.

Our review unit came with the larger of the two removable battery options, and the Dell’s 42Wh battery lasted an excellent 10hrs 28mins in our light-use battery test. If cost or weight savings are more crucial than stamina, however, Dell also makes a lighter, 31Wh battery. Bought separately, the 31Wh retails at £75 exc VAT, and the 45Wh retails at £95 exc VAT.

Most Ultrabooks provide scant connectivity, but not the Latitude E7240; it’s stuffed with an abundance of ports and features. There are three USB 3 ports, mini-DisplayPort, HDMI and a Gigabit Ethernet socket dotted around its edges, and Dell has also added a fingerprint and smart card reader. You can cut costs by specifying Dell-branded single-band 802.11n Wi-Fi, but our range-topping review unit came equipped with an Intel dual-band 802.11ac chipset, Bluetooth 4, NFC and 3G.

The Latitude’s stereo speakers are superb, with audio quality that’s as good as any laptop we’ve reviewed, and light years better than most business models.

Ergonomics aren’t quite up to the standards of the best Latitude laptops, however. The keyboard layout is sound, and the concave keycaps feel comfy under the finger, but there’s too much flex in the keyboard panel for our liking. It’s something we could live with, but we expect better. Thankfully, the touchpad is trouble-free, and its smooth, matte finish and dedicated left and right buttons don’t draw attention to themselves – it just works.

By far the Latitude E7240’s biggest flaw is its display. While business laptops rarely boast the most refined image quality, this basic 12.5in, 1,366 x 768 screen is clearly a low-quality TN panel. It’s bright enough – we measured a maximum brightness of 235cd/m[sup]2[/sup] – but contrast reaches a mediocre 188:1, and colour accuracy is poor. It may suffice for basic business purposes, but with a Full HD, Gorilla Glass-covered touchscreen soon to arrive as an optional extra, most users would do well to budget extra for it.

As you’d expect from an Ultrabook built for business, the E7240 provides a variety of warranty options. The basic £799 exc VAT model includes three years of next-business-day support, and our model includes three years of Dell’s ProSupport, which provides a 24/7 helpline for everything from hardware issues to one-to-one support for popular business software. As ever, it’s possible to tailor the warranty to the needs of everything from SMBs right up to enterprise-class laptop fleets, or downgrade to a basic package to save cash.

The Dell Latitude E7240 may not provide the all-round class of consumer Ultrabooks – and it’s certainly nowhere near as desirable as its hybrid stablemate, the Dell XPS 12 – but it’s a solid addition to the Latitude family, with excellent connectivity and battery life, and the sort of build quality that should see it survive a long, tough life in the office.

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