The use of the touchpad made a good impression on us in every respect. The quietness, and its large size, as well as easy to use buttons are worlds better than the majority of consumer touchpads. The surface is pleasantly smooth but not slippery. A 63 watt-hour battery powers the Dell Latitude 5420. That’s not massive, but it feels above average in 2021. Most premium and luxury laptops have cut battery size in an effort to reduce weight. That beats other long-lasting Windows laptops we’ve recently tested, such as Lenovo’s Yoga 9i and the Razer Book 13. Most owners can expect the Latitude 5420 to endure a full workday of constant use on the go. The message Pressing OK will close all applications, shut down Windows, Flash the BIOS, then reboot. appears. As a real deal business notebook the Latitude E5420 can offer everything that can be wished for when it comes to communication technologies. Since we opted for the Basic-Version, the tested device contains neither Bluetooth or an HSDPA module. The corresponding mini PCIe slots (2x) next to the antenna and the SimCard slot are of course available.

The Latitude E5420 has a durable Tri-Metal casing that offers a brushed aluminum finish for a nice look and a lighter device. The keyboard is spill resistant and there is now an LCD bumper that helps forma seal when the LCD is closed. Additionally, the hinges are made of steel and the underside of the laptop is powder coated to help prevent scratches. The Dell Latitude 5420 is not entirely hopeless. It has a great keyboard, excellent connectivity, and good battery life. Audio quality is not where we’d expect the Latitude 5420 to excel. Work laptops often don’t prioritize audio, and this laptop makes no claims about enhanced sound. In brief, stay away from the Dell Latitude 5420. This is not the work-from-home laptop you’re looking for.

Input Devices: Dell with a Clickpad Disaster

The base unit could only be bent minimally with considerable strength. The hand resting area and the base plate on the compact chassis lie firmly attached. Merely the area under the optical drive is a weak spot as usual, which dents considerably with the application of pressure. The Latitude 5420 we tested had Intel’s Core i7-10610U quad-core processor. It’s an upgrade from the Core i3 processor found in the base configuration, but it certainly didn’t feel like it.

Modern connectivity is provided by twin Thunderbolt 4 ports with Power Delivery and DisplayPort mode. These versatile ports can connect to a variety of USB-C or Thunderbolt devices, can charge the laptop, and can power an external monitor.

Ratings & Reviews

Tradition obliges. The Latitude E5420 Essential from the business line of Dell notebooks certainly lives up to its name. The 14 inch device is a solid notebook with matte high-quality surfaces, and top-notch input devices. Fingers fly across the touchpad and keys with ease and accuracy. Meanwhile users will easily forget that there is only a Core i3-2310M processor under the hood. Although this doesn't quite deliver the same performance of the newer Sandy Bridge Core i5 CPUs with Turbo-Boost 2.0. When it comes to the system noise, Dell's 14 inch notebook is definitely acceptable although with some shortcomings. When in an idle state, or when performing simple tasks such as surfing the web, the cooling fan goes off for longer periods of time. We did measure an idle system noise of 32.8 dB(A) though. The noise that was measured by our noise meter comes from a fast turning hard disc (7200 rpm, base noise). The active noise level lies at 33.2 dB(A). Dell has redesigned the Dell Latitude E Family of laptops with improvements to durability and a new attention to design that is representative of the end user’s desire for a notebook that doesn’t just get the job done, but looks good to. The Dell Latitude E5420 is a new business class laptop from Dell that is aimed at users who need a budget friendly laptop that can be used at the desk or on the go. Professionals and demanding users generally value the selection of ports very highly. The 14 inch notebook has everything on board that we would expect from a work notebook, without providing as many as a precision workstation would have. These include a screw tight VGA port, a PC-Card (PCMCIA) shaft, and FireWire. The older PC-Card standard, which has already gone out of fashion in the consumer world years ago (replaced by ExpressCard), is still popular in the business world. Using this special extension cards (mainly controllers) can be attached. The connection for fast external hard drives is also on board as eSATA, although there is no USB 3.0.

Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6205; Intel® Centrino® Advanced -N + WiMAX 625013; Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300; Dell Wireless 1501 (802.11 b/g/n 1×1); Dell Wireless 1530 (802.11 a/g/n 2×2) Estimated valueis Dell’s estimate of product value based on industry data, including the prices at which third-party retailers have offered or valued the same or comparable products, in its most recent survey of major online and/or off-line retailers. Third-party retailer data may not be based on actual sales. We are here to help. If you've got a question, a problem or a query with anything you've bought from us then we want to hear it. We have a dedicated customer support team that is more than willing to help so you can be confident that you will not be left high and dry. Dell Wireless™ 5630 Multi-mode HSPA-EVDO Mini Card (Gobi™ 3000) with A-GPS; Dell Wireless™ 5550 Single-mode HSPA Mini Card with A-GPS

The graphics unit integrated into the processor will not be very appealing to gamers, but serious office users will have a low power consumption and almost six hours of battery life with the Intel HD 3000. The non-reflective WXGA display is a little too dark though for use outside or in bright surroundings. Narrow viewing angles, a tight color space, and low contrast all lead to a very weak display rating. The file E5420A02.exe is using the Universal (Windows/ DOS) format and is designed to be directly executed from Windows environment. The firmness of the lid has also been a success. This could only be bent holding the edges to a small extent. The surface consists of brushed aluminum, and can be dented inwards in the middle. Fingerprints may be slightly visible, but do remain, and have to be removed with a cleaning cloth. Nothing seems wrong with the Latitude 5420’s touchpad at a glance. It looks spacious and its plastic feel, although not enjoyable, is hardly unusual for a Windows business laptop. Nothing about the Latitude 5420 suggests it might be a good laptop for anything unrelated to work, so perhaps it’s no surprise the display fails to hold up.