Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1 Review

Overall, the Latitude 9450 2-in-1 gets our strong recommendation for a skinny high-end business 2-in-1 convertible.

Dell’s Latitude 9450 2-in-1 convertible laptop will surely please C-suite executives and mobile workers with its flashy design and excellent input devices.

Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1 Specifications

The Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1 is a top-of-the-line business ultraportable laptop for executives and corporate travelers. This laptop is essentially a technology refresh of 2023’s Latitude 9440 2-in-1. It now features Intel’s AI-centric Core Ultra processors, dubbed Meteor Lake.

The U-series chips it uses have a 15-watt power rating, which is appropriate for this notebook class, though they stick with generic Intel Graphics instead of the more powerful Arc graphics found in the Core Ultra H-series chips.

Select processors like the Core Ultra 7 165U in our review model feature Intel vPro remote management. Other specifications include up to 64GB of LPDDR5-7467 RAM and a 2TB SSD.

The Latitude 9450 2-in-1’s specifications are as follows:

Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1 Build and Design

Dell’s Latitude 9000 series has always looked classy, and this Latitude 9450 2-in-1 doesn’t rock the boat. Its outside metal shell feels exceptionally strong, exhibiting no creaking or flexing, regardless of how we handled it. This Latitude passes the Department of Defense’s MIL-STD-810H tests for durability and reliability in extreme conditions.

This Latitude also has a robust, eco-friendly angle. The laptop contains 22% recycled content by weight and uses 75% recycled content in the aluminum lid, 42% bio-based rubber in the chassis feet, and 28% ocean-bound plastic in the fan housing. It also carries Energy Star 8.0, TCO Gen 9, and EPEAT Gold certifications. Furthermore, the packaging is 100% recycled.

Dell says the Latitude 9450 is the world’s smallest 14-inch commercial PC; it measures 0.59~0.64 x 12.2 x 8.47 inches (HWD). It is on the hefty side, though, weighing 3.38 pounds. (An ultraportable laptop would ideally weigh less than three pounds.) It’s an armful when used as a tablet, accomplished by rotating the screen 360 degrees. Tablet mode should be viewed as more of a bonus with convertible PCs, anyway.

Left-edge ports include a 3.5mm universal audio jack, Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), and a Wedge lock slot. Meanwhile, the right edge has two more Thunderbolt 4 ports and, for WWAN models, a nano-SIM slot. The included 65-watt power adapter can be plugged into any Thunderbolt 4 port. Dell gets points for including the headphone jack, though there are no USB-A ports, so you still might need to carry adapters. You’ll likely need adapters for dedicated video output; all the Thunderbolt 4 ports support DisplayPort output. Internally, this Latitude has Intel’s new BE200 chip supporting Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

This Latitude’s keyboard is called zero lattice because there’s no lattice between the keys, making them larger than expected. They’re comfortable typing on, and they have good travel and tactile feedback. This is the first laptop we’ve tested with a Copilot key on the keyboard, next to the Alt key right of the spacebar. In terms of heat from the keyboard or bottom, under heavy load we experienced the notebook get warm, but nothing excessive.

The Latitude’s haptic feedback touchpad is another unique feature, one we’re starting to see on high-end laptops. It’s large and works very well for most gestures, though we had some inconsistency with clicking and dragging. The collaboration features from the Latitude 9440 2-in-1 follow into this model. (Hit that link to read all about them.)

The touch screen is highly responsive. Its 16:10 aspect ratio and 2560×1600 resolution are excellent for productivity. It also has active pen support. No screen upgrade options are offered.

Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1 Performance

Now, we’ll put this new Latitude to the test in our benchmark suite. Our review model has the following specifications:

• Intel Core Ultra 7 165U vPro
• 32GB LPDDR5-7467 RAM
• 512GB SSD
• Wi-Fi 7
• 3-year warranty with next business day onsite repair
• Price: $2,983

The price above is the single unit price on Dell.com, but Dell tells us only about 1% of Latitudes are sold through its site; most units are purchased through channel partners.

We will be comparing the Latitude 9450 2-in-1 to its predecessor, the Latitude 9440 2-in-1, which we tested with a Core i7-1365U, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. As we look towards the performance metrics, we did cover battery life leveraging the Procyon battery life suite. With the screen brightness at 50% we measured a battery life of 14 hours and 8 minutes.

SPECviewperf 2020

Our first test is SPECviewperf 2020, the worldwide standard for measuring the graphics performance of professional applications under the OpenGL and Direct X application programming interfaces. The viewsets (or benchmarks) represent graphics content and behavior from actual applications without having to install the applications themselves. The newest version of this benchmark went through significant updates late last year, including new viewsets taken from traces of the latest versions of 3ds Max, Catia, Maya, and Solidworks applications. In addition, they added support within all viewsets for both 2K and 4K resolution displays.

The Latitude 9450 wouldn’t be used for tasks like this in the real world, but it did complete the benchmark, so all the credit to it. We only have numbers for the Latitude 9450 in this test.

Luxmark

Another 3D benchmark we will look at is LuxMark, an OpenCL GPU benchmarking utility. The Latitude 9450 stumbled here, well behind the Iris Xe-equipped Latitude 9440. We expected better from the new Intel Graphics, but perhaps the drivers aren’t mature. Either way, GPU performance isn’t too important on laptops like these, so let’s move on.

7-Zip Compression

We have also started running 7-Zip’s built-in memory benchmark on laptops. The Latitude 9450 often fell behind its predecessor by significant margins.

Blackmagic RAW Speed Test

Our next test is the new Blackmagic RAW Speed test. The Latitude 9450 did slightly better than the Latitude 9440, which is a welcome sign since the reverse was true in many of the tests so far.

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test

The Latitude 9450’s 512GB SSD produced average numbers for an OEM drive, with 3,632.8MB/s read and 1,176.2MB/s write.

y-cruncher

y-cruncher is a multi-threaded and scalable program that can compute Pi and other mathematical constants to trillions of digits. Since its launch in 2009, it has become a popular benchmarking and stress-testing application for overclockers and hardware enthusiasts. We only have numbers for the Latitude 9450 in this test.

Geekbench 6

Geekbench 6 is a cross-platform benchmark that measures overall system performance. You can find comparisons to any system you want in the Geekbench Browser. Here, we also have numbers for Latitude 9450.

Cinebench R23

This benchmark uses all CPU cores and threads to generate an overall score. In this test, we only have numbers for the Latitude 9450.

Cinebench 2024

We also started running the latest Cinebench test. Like some other tests here, we only started running this recently, so we only have numbers for the Latitude 9450.

UL Procyon AI Inference

UL’s Procyon estimates a workstation’s performance for professional apps. This is another recent test where we only have numbers for the Latitude 9450. There aren’t many takeaways from these numbers except that the CPU is usually much slower for AI operations than the GPU, though not always; it was faster in the DeepLab V3 subtest.

Conclusion

Business executives and corporate travelers looking for the slickest 2-in-1 convertible notebook should strongly consider the Latitude 9450 2-in-1. Its strong metal design, excellent input devices, and 16:10 touch screen make it a formidable productivity platform. This is also one of the first laptops we’ve seen with a copilot key on the keyboard.

The only area where this Latitude didn’t impress was performance, where it often trailed or just matched the preceding Latitude 9440 2-in-1 despite switching to Intel’s “Meteor Lake” Core Ultra CPUs. This was especially true in the graphics department. It seems to have plenty of power for its intended tasks, though.

Overall, the Latitude 9450 2-in-1 gets our strong recommendation for a skinny high-end business 2-in-1 convertible.

Latitude 9450 2-in-1 Product Page

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