Dell Latitude 10 review

We’ve seen plenty of Windows 8 tablets since the OS launched last year, but the Dell Latitude 10 is the first designed primarily for business. What differentiates a business Windows 8 tablet from a consumer one? Judging by the options available for the Latitude 10 on the Dell website – and the box full of accessories that came with our review sample – it’s flexibility.

The Latitude 10 can, within reason, be tweaked and specified like any laptop. The “Essentials” tablet is available for as little as £375 exc VAT, and you can upgrade the storage from 64GB to 128GB and add all manner of extras to your basket, from a powered desktop dock with a Gigabit Ethernet socket and USB sockets to a stylus for note-taking and handwriting recognition.

The most intriguing of the accessories, however, is a removable battery, which clips into a bay on the tablet’s rear panel. This feature is only available on the pricier “Standard” edition reviewed here, but it’s one of the Latitude’s key selling points. Two different battery types are available: a two-cell 3,880mAh unit, and a four-cell battery that doubles this capacity, delivering a mighty 7,760mAh for an extra £23 exc VAT. In concert with the Latitude’s low-power, 1.8GHz dual-core Atom Z2760 CPU, the stamina delivered is impressive.

With the larger unit in place, the Dell’s final result of 27hrs 8mins in our light-use battery test is the best we’ve recorded. It even outlasts the 21-hour lifespan of the previous record-holder – the Acer Iconia W510 – which needed two batteries to survive that long. The standard battery pack didn’t let the Dell down, either. It lasted for 12hrs 35mins in the light-use benchmark – as long as a third-generation iPad.

Tablet hardware

Exciting though these figures are, the Latitude itself is about as plain as tablets get. There’s a matte-black rear and a glossy façade, and the larger removable battery adds an ugly hump on the rear. The Dell weighs 658g with the standard battery installed – more than the Acer’s 566g – and this figure increases to 860g with the larger power pack clamped to the rear.

The 10.1in 1,366 x 768 IPS display is bright, going right up to 448cd/m2 at its maximum setting. That is far brighter than the Acer Iconia’s 285cd/m2 result, and the Latitude goes on to deliver intense, accurate colours and a contrast ratio of 734:1.

As you might expect from a business device, it’s the very model of practicality. The right-hand edge sports a USB 2 socket and a mini-HDMI output, and there’s a full-size SD slot on the top edge, a Kensington lock slot on the left, and a micro-USB socket for charging the tablet next to a proprietary docking port connector on the bottom.

Inside, there’s dual-band 802.11n wireless and Bluetooth 4, and the Standard-edition Latitude can also be specified with an integrated 3G adapter for an additional £96 exc VAT. You can get 3G for less by opting for the “NetReady” model, which costs only £63 exc VAT more, but this locks the device to O2, with internet access delivered on a pay-as-you-go basis.

The one big negative is that application performance isn’t great. Its Intel 1.8GHz Atom Z2760 CPU scored only 0.22 in our Real World Benchmarks; although this is enough for smooth Start screen and Internet Explorer 10 scrolling and panning, it can’t run intensive applications so well. Even some simple tasks seemed to tax the Latitude 10: it took a long time to switch between categories in the Search menu, and Explorer windows were slow to open in desktop mode.

Neither were we impressed by the Dell’s pair of cameras. The front-facing 2-megapixel camera is average, with images dogged by noise and graininess, but it’s fine for videoconferencing and Skype. The rear-facing 8-megapixel camera could be much better, though. Its colours were oversaturated, detail was blurred around the edges of our sample pictures, and there was a distracting green cast to all our test shots.

Verdict

Despite the mediocre cameras, sluggish performance and a woeful case, there’s plenty to like about the Latitude 10. The huge battery and amazing stamina are enough on their own to justify the asking price of £521. We know of no other device capable of running full Windows software that comes close, and the fact you can buy extra batteries for £56, to swap out when it does eventually run out of juice, turns it into the ultimate road-warrior’s tool.

Add the stylus capability, which places it one step ahead of the Acer Iconia W510, and the desktop dock, which adds to its office-bound appeal, and you have (almost) the perfect mobile workhorse. The Dell Latitude 10 sets a high standard for Windows 8 business devices; we wonder if anything else will be able to compete with it.

Related Posts

How to Screenshot on a Dell PC or Laptop Samsung Galaxy S7 Review: A Great Phone in its Day, but Don’t Buy One Private Internet Access Review ExpressVPN Review – Unbiased and Tested In-House “Your Payment Requires Additional Review” in Zelle – What Does it Mean? CyberGhost Review Pluto TV Review—Is It Worth It? How to Change or Set Your Profile Picture in Zoom How to Make Two Columns in Google Docs