Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1 Review: Couture Computing

I recently reviewed Dell’s Inspiron 14 Plus laptop, and I was delighted with its price and performance. The design, however, was quite dull and unimpressive. Funnily enough, my current daily driver is also a Dell laptop—the Latitude 9450 2-in-1, to be precise. It sits on the opposite end of the spectrum of the Inspiron 14 Plus and prioritises form over function. It also costs a lot – way more than what you or I would pay for a notebook of this pedigree. 

Then again, Dell’s Latitude range is geared toward business professionals and C-suite executives and is usually bought in large quantities for an entire enterprise. The laptop’s cost, then, doesn’t matter so much. Even so, I was curious about what the Latitude 9450 2-in-1 brought to the table and how it could be improved for the next iteration. Let’s take a closer look at the laptop in this review.

Design

The Dell Latitude 9450 radiates luxury, and its design rivals pricey consumer-grade notebooks like the HP Spectre x360. To be clear, it’s not a flashy or showy machine. On the contrary, the company has taken a simplistic approach to the design of the Latitude 9450, which gives it a professional, utilitarian look. However, there are some elegant touches thrown in here and there that are immediately noticeable and make it stand out.

For one, the laptop’s shiny metal edges, reminiscent of a Spectre laptop, are an immediate head-turner. The unit feels noticeably dense, too, and it ships with high-quality hinges that can tilt the 2-in-1 screen up to 360 degrees. The hinges are quite stiff and don’t contribute to any display wobble. This allowed me to use the laptop comfortably when I was out and about.

The laptop lid has a matte finish and a soft texture. The keyboard deck feels even more velvety to the touch, which took me by surprise in a good way. I couldn’t help but show it off to anyone who would listen. The edges are a tad sharp, though, so they may bite into your wrists, especially when using the device as a tablet. And, while Dell claims the Latitude 9450 is the most compact commercial laptop with a 14-inch screen, it is somewhat heavy at 1.5Kg. 

I honestly didn’t mind the added heft, as it made the laptop’s build feel more sturdy. As such, if you’re looking for a lightweight convertible, I recommend checking out HP’s Envy or LG’s Gram lineup. Regardless, the Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1 is one of the most good-looking laptops on the market. 

Display and Audio 

The Latitude 9450 2-in-1 ships with a 14-inch IPS display with a QHD+ (2,560 x 1,600) resolution. As you may have guessed, the screen sports a 16:10 aspect ratio and is surrounded by extremely narrow bezels. It is a touchscreen, so you can interact with the display to get to access various settings and apps easily. And, don’t worry; the screen features an anti-smudge coating, so it won’t pick up on too many fingerprints, either. Additionally, the display can get quite bright at 500 nits, so you should be able to use it outdoors or in say, a well-lit conference room. 

The panel exhibits some backlight bleeding towards the lower left-hand side. It also doesn’t offer inky black levels or the high contrast provided by competing laptops with an OLED screen. However, it has excellent viewing angles and overturns rich colours, so you should enjoy watching movies and TV shows on it regardless. The screen’s 16:10 aspect ratio also makes it ideal for business professionals, as it accommodates more of an email or PDF per scroll. 

My only real gripe with the screen is that it refreshes at 60Hz, which is quite disappointing for the laptop’s asking price. On the upside, the Dell Latitude 9450’s top-firing speakers are among the loudest on any 14-inch convertible. The audio output is not shrill; instead, it offers a deep low-end that brings action movies to life. 

Ports and I/O

The Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1 has limited connectivity options. The laptop features three Thunderbolt 4 Type-C connectors with PowerDelivery and DisplayPort 2.1 compatibility. It also comes with a 3.5mm combo jack. Needless to say, the laptop could’ve benefitted from full-sized HDMI or USB Type-A ports, seeing as it will be used in an office setting. 

Dell sells a compact dock that goes along with the Latitude 9450. The dock has a built-in, retractable Type-C cable and a bevvy of ports. It is an added cost, but it’ll go a long way. On the upside, the laptop has a capable Full HD IR webcam packed with privacy features. These features can be found under the Presence Detection tab in the Dell Optimizer app.

Once there, you can turn on Onlooker Detection, which covers the screen in a pattern when it detects people looking at your display. You can also enable automatic locking and waking features when you walk away from your laptop or approach it. The tools work well and will undoubtedly benefit those viewing sensitive PDFs or other official documents on the go.

The webcam can also use various Windows Studio effects to ensure you look the best in a conference call. On that note, you can use auto-framing to ensure your face is centred. Additionally, the portrait blur feature should come in handy if you are joining a video call from a messy room. The picture quality is quite good, too, so no complaints here.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The Latitude 9450 2-in-1 comes with the company’s Zero-Lattice keyboard. In simpler terms, the keys have no spacing, and the keycaps are bigger than the ones on most notebooks. I found the keyboard deck extremely comfortable – the wrist rest area feels soft to the touch, and the keys offer adequate travel. The keyboard deck comes with backlit lighting, too, so you should be able to work seamlessly at night. 

The laptop’s Trackpad is just as good and offers a smooth surface. It’s also quite spacious and takes up a sizeable area below the keyboard. Additionally, the Latitude 9450 uses a Haptic Trackpad. For those unaware, unlike mechanical trackpads, a haptic touchpad helps eliminate dead zones. Users can also change the unit’s tap sensitivity, which refers to the force required to invoke a left or a right click,  by going into the Trackpad’s settings in Windows.

Dell has also incorporated some collaborative features within the laptop. For example, when you start a Zoom or Teams meeting, the trackpad will show quick-access shortcuts to mute your audio, disable the webcam, and more. These features will undoubtedly be useful for people who jump in and out of video calls. 

Performance and Battery Life

The Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1 provides decent performance, but it falls short compared to similarly priced machines with superior processors and GPUs. The laptop features Intel’s Core Ultra 7 165U processor, which, on paper, offers a slight spec bump over the Core Ultra 7 155U processor powering the HP Envy 14 x360 (review). As such, the 165U’s P-cores turbo frequency is slightly higher at 4.9GHz. In actuality, the laptop’s performance is quite similar (and at times worse) to machines backed by the 155U chipset. 

Take the PCMark 10 and PCMark 10 Extended synthetic tests, for instance. Here, the HP Envy 14 x360 logged 5,757 and 5,435 points, respectively. The Latitude 9450, on the other hand, secured 5,814 and 5,504 points. Similarly, in GeekBench 6’s single and multi-core runs, the Latitude 9450 overturned 2,316 and 9,573 points. The Envy 14 x360 wasn’t too far behind and netted 2,190 and 8,519 points.

Both laptops net similar figures in PugetBench’s Photoshop benchmark as well. The Latitude was able to complete tasks like applying an Adaptive Wide Angle filter, Lens Correction filter or Iris Blur slightly quicker, resulting in a marginally better overall score. 

Clearly, the 165U has a slight edge over the 155U processor. However, the scenery changes when you consider benchmarks that tax the GPU. As an example, let’s look at each laptop’s Fire Strike, Fire Strike Extreme, and Fire Strike Ultra scores. Here, the Latitude 9450 scored 3,629, 1,876, and 1,132 points. The Envy, on the other hand, scored 4,571, 2,532, and 1,217 points in the same tests. The Latitude’s Night Raid score was also lower at 14,139 points compared to the Envy’s 16,600 points.

Benchmarks aside, I found the laptop’s performance to my liking. The laptop could comfortably juggle a half dozen apps, including Slack, Asana, Chrome, and more. It didn’t come to a halt even when taxed with data-heavy Excel sheets. As such, if you also use your work machines to send emails or to use communication/project management services, you will find the laptop’s performance desirable. 

Let’s wrap up this section by talking about the laptop’s gaming performance. To no one’s surprise, the Latitude 9450 2-in-1 doesn’t excel at running modern AAA games. However, it does a good enough job of playing eSports titles like Rocket League and Valorant or lighter titles like Hades. The unit averaged around 60FPS in Valorant, and that’s with the game running at 2K resolution and High graphics presets.

Similarly, GTA 5 nets 20FPS at the laptop’s native resolution and 34FPS at 1200P resolution at high-quality presets. You can lower the graphics presets to get the title to run at around 60FPS. Hades could run at around 70FPS at 2K resolution, too. In addition, the laptop doesn’t get too warm to the touch. In fact, I rarely saw the CPU temps go beyond 80 degrees when playing games on the machine, which is excellent.

As for the battery backup, the Dell Latitude 9450 can last up to six hours off a single charge. In PCMark 10’s Battery test, the laptop logged 10 hours and 32 minutes. While not the best, the laptop’s battery backup should suffice for most users.

Verdict 

The Dell Latitude 9450 costs almost Rs 3 Lacs in India, and it is expensive for what it offers. However, as I mentioned at the beginning of my review, the laptop is geared toward enterprises looking to equip their employees with a premium convertible notebook. Pricing aside, the laptop checks a lot of the right boxes. It offers a premium display, a capable chipset, and an exquisite design. If I could change something, I would swap the laptop’s IPS screen for an OLED panel. Other than that, though, I feel most users will be quite happy with the Latitude 9450.

Editor’s Rating: 8 / 10

Pros:

• Exquisite design
• Sharp 2K display
• Runs quiet 
• Excellent speaker setup
• Good privacy features

Cons:

• Expensive
• Price warrants an OLED / HRR display
• Not the fastest laptop in its segment

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