1.Pricing & specs2.Display & design3.Camera & audio4.Keyboard & pen5.Performance & battery6.Competition7.Should you buy?
So, with that, let’s get into my Latitude 9440 review.
Disclaimer:This review was made possible by a review unit provided by Dell.
The new Dell Latitude 9440 2-in-1.
The company did not see the contents of the review before publishing.
You’re almost certainly not going to notice a difference between either of these.
You’ll be saving yourself a few hundred bucks and getting pretty much the same experience.
And changes it made.
The design of the Latitude 9440 2-in-1 can be best described as a more sensible XPS 13 Plus.
So, what’s different?
The device has a 360-degree hinge.
We’ll start with the overall design, a little larger and thicker than the XPS 13 Plus.
We have a 14-inch screen, up from 13.6-inch on the XPS Plus.
The display also features an anti-reflective coating and an anti-smudge coating that attempts to reduce fingerprints.
It has sleek hard-cut edges that shine.
It’s certainly not the most portable laptop around.
It even has pen support with the optional Dell Active Pen.
The Latitude 9440 2-in-1 does indeed pass the one-hand opening test, too.
There’s dual USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports on the left.
The edges of the equipment feature clean-cut sides with a shiny brushed metal effect that looks great.
The laptop also features that familiar XPS wedge-shaped design, meaning the front is thinner than the back.
The right side also includes a nanoSIM card slot for models with a 5G modem.
The webcam has an automatic shutter.
(My review unit did not.)
It’s a minor complaint, but something to keep in mind.
It sounded like a small clicking sound, and at first, I wasn’t sure what it was.
There are also downward firing speakers.
It’s a pretty neat feature if you’re working on highly confidential documentation.
Moving onto audio, I’ve not been overly impressed with the audio performance on this laptop.
At the lowest volume levels, it’s fine.
The zero-lattice keyboard and haptic touchpad.
However, anything above 30% or so, and the bass becomes overpowering and begins rattling the laptop.
In comparison, the tweeters are positioned for top and bottom firing and sound fine.
The audio is okay outside of the bass issue, which I assume is unique to my model.
There are also upward firing speakers that flank the keyboard.
This design features larger keycaps with reduced spacing between each individual key.
The keycaps themselves are square with sharp corners and look excellent compared to most traditional laptop keyboard designs.
Below the keyboard, we have an incredibly large haptic touchpad, which feels amazing to use.
(Image credit: Windows Central)
It has the same four levels of feedback control, with the default level set at 3.
The touchpad also has some hidden capacitive buttons for muting your mic and changing the audio volume.
Unfortunately, the buttons only appear when loading up Zoom.
(Image credit: Windows Central)
So you’re able to’t use them in Teams or Slack.
Now, for me, this touchpad has been a little bit troublesome.
It’s random, but it happens often enough that it becomes annoying.
(Image credit: Windows Central)
I’ll be using it, and suddenly, my cursor will stop moving for a second.
But it’s something to watch out for.
However, this laptop will randomly throttle its performance and stay there for a long time.
(Image credit: Windows Central)
I’ve noted this happening several times, dropping to around 1GHz and staying there.
The system becomes choppy when this happens, with frame drops and apps taking longer to process.
This is easily fixed with a restart, but it’s annoying that it happens randomly.
(Image credit: Windows Central)
You won’t be playing any AAA games, however.
The Dell just about beats theSurface Laptop StudioandRazer Blade 15, too.
The SK Hynix BC901 SSD performance is also good, though not the best in class.
(Image credit: Windows Central)
However, read speeds were significantly lower in our tests.
It has the same zero lattice keyboard design, a similar haptic touchpad, and a similar overall design.
That said, there are some notable differences.
The Surface Pro 9 is another 2-in-1 on the market.
Additionally, the Latitude has upward-firing speakers, whereas the XPS 13 Plus has speakers below the keyboard.
We love the Yoga 9i, and I think this is the Latitude 9440’s strongest competitor.
Dell Latitude 9440: Should you buy?
This design is just so sleek.
The rattling bass speaker and freezing touchpad are the primary issues.
The design of the Latitude 9440 2-in-1 is excellent.
I do love the additional security features Dell has built into this laptop.
Be sure to check out our roundup ofbest Windows laptopsto see where all our reviewed laptops rank!
The Dell Latitude 9440 2-in-1 is an all-round excellent Windows laptop for business use.
