Dell Latitude 5401 review – a business notebook that packs a punch

The Latitude 5401 is a very interesting piece of machinery. On the outside, it is very similar (if not the same) as the Latitude 5400. It is a great laptop for business entrepreneurs, so don’t forget to pay a visit to our In-depth review. So, take the latter, put an H-series processor inside of the ULV ones and you have the Latitude 5401.

Quite straightforward, isn’t it? However, how can a business notebook with a 14-inch display handle the six-core behemoth of a CPU – the Core i7-9850H. We shall see later. But first, we have to say that it is quite an expensive device. In a configuration with the less potent Core i5-9300H/9400H, you have to pay some $1350. Take it up to a six-core CPU, and the price rises to $1500. Put the GeForce MX150 (25W) inside – and the cost sky-rockets to $1750.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-latitude-14-5401/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Dell Latitude 14 5401 - Technische Daten

  • BOE NV14N4F-HN4TM (BOE07BB)
  • Farbgenauigkeit  4.7  4.0
  • HDD/SSD
  • bis zu 2000GB SSD + bis zu 500GB HDD
  • RAM
  • up to 32GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Home, No OS
  • Batterie
  • 51Wh, 3-cell, 68Wh, 4-cell
  • Gehäuse Material
  • Carbon
  • Abmessungen
  • 323 x 216 x 20 mm (12.72" x 8.50" x 0.79")
  • Gewicht
  • 1.53 kg (3.4 lbs)
  • Ports und Konnektivität
  • 2x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Power Delivery (PD)
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), Thunderbolt 3
  • HDMI
  • 2.0
  • Kartenleser
  • Micro SD
  • Ethernet LAN
  • 10, 100, 1000
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.0
  • Audio-Buchse
  • 3.5 mm combo
  • Merkmale
  • Fingerabdruckleser
  • optional
  • Web-Kamera
  • Beleuchtete Tastatur
  • Mikrofon
  • Lautsprecher
  • 2x 2.5W
  • Optisches Laufwerk
  • Sicherheitsschlitz
  • fingerprint reader (optional), backlit keyboard

Alle Dell Latitude 14 5401 Konfigurationen

#CommissionsEarned

What’s in the box?

Inside the package, you will find the laptop itself, as well as some paper manuals and a 130W power adapter with a USB Type-C connector.


Design and construction

As we mentioned, design-wise this model is very similar to Latitude 5400. However, it is slightly, bulkier and a tad heavier, in order to accommodate the more powerful processors. However, what remains the same is the post-industrial carbon fiber, some of which is obtained through recycling. This makes the laptop both light and rigid.

Its lid cannot be opened with a single hand, sadly. On the bright side, there is an IR face recognition system on the top, which works with Windows Hello.

Next up – the base. On the far right side, you can see the Power On/Off. While our unit is not equipped with one, the model has an optional fingerprint reader. As of the keyboard, itself, it has a decent travel, well-balanced spacing, and a backlight. Well, its feedback is a little soft, and the “Arrow” keys have the “Page Up” and “Page down” nonsense above them, which may lead to some unwanted stretching along with a webpage.

Additionally, as a typical Latitude, it features a nipple. There is a set of buttons dedicated to it, just above the touchpad. Moreover, you’ll find another set of buttons below it – they are intended for use with the touchpad, itself. By the way, it has decent tracking and acceleration.

Finally, turn the laptop upside down, if you are looking for the ventilation grills and the speaker cut-outs. Unsurprisingly, Dell has put the exhaust vents on the left side.

Ports

This device is overwhelmed with I/O. On the left side, you will find a proprietory charging plug, as well as a Thunderbolt 3 connector (which our unit uses for charging), a USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) port and there is an optional Smart card reader that should sit right after the exhaust grills. Switch sides and you will see the RJ-45 connector, quickly followed by an HDMI connector and two USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) ports (one of them supports PowerShare). Then there is an Audio combo jack, a MicroSD card slot and a SIM card slot, should your device has LTE support.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

If you want to tinker with the insides of this machine, you have to unscrew a total of 8 Phillips-head screws. Thankfully, like the rest of the Latitude machines, they stay attached to the panel.

Now let’s take a look at the cooling solution. It features a single fan – something unnatural for a six-core configuration. However, the heat pipe on this thing is humongous. Seriously, it’s bulkier than those on some gaming laptops.

Memory-wise there are two RAM SODIMM slots that support up to 32GB of DDR4 memory in total. In terms of storage, depending on the battery size, you either get only an M.2 slot with PCIe x4 support or you also get the 2.5″ SATA drive slot, if you happen to get the smaller battery pack.

The one we got is the larger 68Wh unit, while the smaller one provides a 51Wh capacity.


Display quality

Dell Latitude 5401 features a Full HD IPS screen, model number BOE NV14N4F-HN4TM (BOE07BB). Its diagonal is 14″ (35.56 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 157 ppi, their pitch – 0.161 x 0.161 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 55 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

It has comfortable viewing angles. We have provided images at 45 degrees to evaluate quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 260 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 244 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 11%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6000K (average) – warmer than the 6500K optimum for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 5900K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 67% Brightness (White level = 136 cd/m2, Black level = 0.11 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is acceptable – 1220:1 (1150:1 after profiling).

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Dell Latitude 5401’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers only 51% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of Dell Latitude 5401 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 35 ms. The panel is not one of the fastest on the market.


Health impact – PWM / Blue Light

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Dell Latitude 5401’s display doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness only at the maximum level. Not only that, but the flickerings have a relatively low frequency, which is a disadvantage.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusions

Dell Latitude 5401’s display has a Full HD IPS panel with good contrast ratio, comfortable viewing angles, and adequate default settings. On the downside, it covers only 51% of sRGB and uses PWM to adjust its brightness at all levels. However, the latter can be easily fixed by our Gaming and Web design profile.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Dell Latitude 5401 configurations with 14.0″ BOE NV14N4F-HN4TM (BOE07BB) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

Mit dem Kauf von LaptopMedia-Produkten erhalten Sie nicht nur effiziente und gesundheitsschonende Profile, sondern Sie unterstützen auch die Entwicklung unserer Labore, in denen wir Geräte testen, um möglichst objektive Testberichte zu erstellen.

Büroarbeit

Office Work sollte vor allem von Benutzern verwendet werden, die die meiste Zeit mit dem Betrachten von Textstücken, Tabellen oder einfach nur mit dem Surfen verbringen. Dieses Profil zielt darauf ab, durch Beibehaltung einer flachen Gammakurve (2,20), einer nativen Farbtemperatur und wahrnehmungsgerechten Farben eine bessere Deutlichkeit und Klarheit zu liefern.

Design und Spiele

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Gesundheitsschutz

Health-Guard eliminiert die schädliche Pulsweitenmodulation (PWM) und reduziert das negative blaue Licht, das unsere Augen und unseren Körper beeinflusst. Da er für jedes Panel maßgeschneidert ist, schafft er es, die Farben wahrnehmungsgetreu zu halten. Health-Guard simuliert Papier, so dass der Druck auf die Augen stark reduziert wird.

Erhalten Sie alle 3 Profile mit 33% Rabatt


Sound

Dell Latitude 5401’s speakers produce a rather quiet sound with decent quality. Its low, mid and high tones are clear of deviations.


Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities for the Latitude 5401 can be found here: https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/latitude-14-5401-laptop/drivers

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. We got the configuration, equipped with the larger 68Wh battery pack.

We got around 14 hours of Web browsing and 10 hours and a half of video playback.


CPU options

This laptop is one of the few 14-inchers that come with a 45W processor inside. You can either get the regular version of the quad-core Core i5-9300H, or the vPro model – the Core i5-9400H. Additionally, for a little premium, you can purchase the notebook with a Core i7-9850H.


GPU options

Obviously, this is no gaming beast. This is why you either have to stick with the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 or the 25W version of the GeForce MX150 with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.


Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS49 fps32 fps13 fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS73 fps35 fps17 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Core i7-9750H (45W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Dell Latitude 54012.98 GHz (B+15%)@ 98°C2.66 GHz (B+2%)@ 98°C2.26 GHz @ 98°C
Dell Inspiron 15 75902.91 GHz (B+12%)@ 97°C2.52 GHz @ 97°C2.41 GHz @ 97°C
HP Pavilion Gaming 15 20193.57 GHz (B+37%)@ 81°C2.88 GHz (B+11%)@ 73°C2.66 GHz (B+2%)@ 73°C
Lenovo Legion Y5402.78 GHz (B+7%)@ 74°C3.08 GHz (B+18%)@ 90°C2.87 GHz (B+10%)@ 79°C
ASUS ROG G5313.41 GHz (B+31%)@ 95°C3.23 GHz (B+24%)@ 95°C2.72 GHz (B+5%)@ 79°C

As you can see, in comparison with the gaming laptops with heavy and bulky cooling solutions, there is little to do. Despite the fat heat pipe, the Latitude 5401’s cooling system is just not capable of providing enough capacity to the Core i7-9850H.

Comfort during full load

The fan spins up quite loudly during maximum load. But it is good to know that the laptop is at least trying to cool itself down.


Verdict

As a business product, the Latitude 5401 does not fall behind its ULV brother. Yes, it is slightly thicker and marginally heavier, but this is a difference, impossible to see if you don’t have both devices side by side on a table.

One of the major strong points, that shows the efficiency of the Coffee Lake processors is battery life. We were able to get around 14 hours of Web browsing and 10 hours and a half of video playback. Keep in mind that our device was equipped with the noticeably larger 68Wh unit.

Let’s continue praising the device, by mentioning its two RAM SODIMMs. Via them, it can support up to 32GB of DDR4 memory in total. Not only that, but this laptop comes with an M.2 slot with PCIe x4 support, a Thunderbolt 3 connector, as well as a MicroSD card slot and an optional LTE connectivity.

Dell Latitude 5401’s display has a Full HD IPS panel (BOE NV14N4F-HN4TM (BOE07BB)) with good contrast ratio, comfortable viewing angles, and adequate default settings. On the downside, it covers only 51% of sRGB and uses PWM to adjust its brightness at all levels. However, the latter can be easily fixed by our Health-Guard profile.

What should we say? This is an extremely powerful business device. Connectivity is on point, upgradability is great, battery life will last you an entire business day, and will still provide you with some movie time after work. However, there is one thing you need to know. The cooling solution on this laptop is not built for continuous workloads. If you are in search of a laptop for compiling complicated calculations or 3D objects, or even video, this laptop is surely going to thermal throttle on you. If you are going to focus on powerful, but short-lasting loads, there won’t be any problems, whatsoever. Plus, you can always undervolt your CPU and get some extra performance out of it.

Pros

  • Strong body build of carbon
  • Great battery life
  • Wide range of connectivity options
  • Easy to upgrade
  • Beast processor inside
  • Fingerprint reader embedded in the power button + IR face recognition (both are optional)
  • PCIe x4, Thunderbolt 3 and (optional) LTE support


Cons

  • Has a keyboard with a rather small deck
  • Uses aggressive PWM to adjust its brightness up the maximum level of brightness (fixed by our Health-Guard profile) (BOE NV14N4F-HN4TM (BOE07BB))
  • Covers only 51% of sRGB (BOE NV14N4F-HN4TM (BOE07BB))
  • The cooling struggles a lot under heavy load

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-latitude-14-5401/

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Peter
Peter
4 Jahre vor

Funny Dell wants to cool a 6-core 45w CPU with a single fan and heatpipe. What a waste of potential performance that causes.

Carlos
Carlos
3 Jahre vor

How did you get 14 hours of battery out of it. I can barely get 3 hours only doing office work. Nothing crazy.

Miroslav Hrncir
Miroslav Hrncir
3 Jahre vor
Antwort an  Carlos

Hi Carlos, I have the same problem. I had 5491 (this one’s predecessor) and it’s battery last twice more … Do you have any new experience how to solve this?

Mark
Mark
1 Monat vor

Do your Display profiles work with any tools, under Ubuntu or other Linux distros? I use Kubuntu 22.04+ Linux almost all the time. Boot Windows for taxes… thank you, great article!