Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1

Both handsome and versatile, the Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1 (starts at $2,059; $2,754.79 as tested) is, like other Latitude laptops, built for corporations and enterprise IT departments. The company says only a few Latitudes are sold to consumers via Dell.com rather than the bulk or fleet deployments discounted below the quoted price. But that's not to say the 9450 is entirely unmoored from Dell's consumer lineup; its sleek look and feel could make most people mistake it for an XPS 14. The Latitude is a sturdy and reliable all-around convertible with ample battery life, but its screen and performance don't stand out considering its cost.

Configurations: Brand New Silicon

As a business laptop, the Latitude 9450 2-in-1 works best for mainstream office productivity rather than multimedia content creation or specialized workstation tasks. The $2,059 base model combines an Intel Core Ultra 5 125U "Meteor Lake" processor, 16GB of memory, and a skimpy 256GB solid-state drive.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Each of those three specs is available to upgrade—our review unit has a Core Ultra 7 165U CPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD, hiking its price to $2,754.79—but the 2,560-by-1,600-pixel IPS touch screen backed by Intel Arc integrated graphics stays constant across all configurations.

Individual shoppers should note that Dell tucks some options behind an "advanced customization" link on the system's web page. Clicking it unlocks additional upgrades to 64GB of RAM, 1TB of solid-state storage, and a 5G modem for online access when no Wi-Fi hotspot is nearby.

Design: A Hard-to-Beat Look, But a Bit of Heft

For a buttoned-down corporate portable, the Latitude is one of the best-looking systems you'll find. It features thin screen bezels that compact its footprint, but lifting the lid reveals a roomy keyboard and touchpad. Measuring 0.55 inch thick and weighing in at 3.5 pounds, it can fit into any bag designed for a 14- or 15-inch notebook (and probably many meant for 13-inch machines). On the minus side, it's heavier than many alternatives, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 8 (3.04 pounds).

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The extra weight reduces portability but also lends a sense of durability. The 9450 2-in-1 feels sturdy and shows little flex in typical use. The top and bottom are thick aluminum, while the interior relies on smooth plastics that your fingers and palms can easily glide across. Dell has no monopoly on build quality—the Lenovo ThinkPad and HP Dragonfly lineups are also impressive. Still, the Latitude's design stands out despite these attractive alternatives.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Using the Latitude 9450 2-in-1: More Laptop Than Tablet

As I said, the Latitude 9450 2-in-1 looks and feels similar to Dell's consumer ultraportable, the Dell XPS 14, but the company doesn't sell a convertible variant of that laptop. Using the Latitude will quickly remind you why.

The problem, if you haven't guessed, is weight. The 9450 2-in-1 is too heavy to hold as a tablet for more than a few minutes. The Latitude is more useful in tent mode, where the keyboard acts as a kickstand for the touch screen, and presentation or kiosk mode, where the device is folded with the keyboard face-down on a table or desk to more easily share the screen with a client or coworker.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The touch screen supports an active pen, but Dell doesn't ship a stylus with the laptop or list a compatible pen alongside it on Dell.com. We expect any of several active pens would work as they do with other Windows 2-in-1 laptops, but I couldn't test one.

While its heft makes the Latitude only suitable for occasional use as a tablet, it's sturdy and likable as a laptop. The large, responsive touchpad is a highlight; about five and a half inches wide and more than three inches deep, it's larger even than the generous touchpads found on competitors like the Asus Zenbook 14X OLED and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The laptop's connectivity is excellent—if you're willing to go all in on USB-C. The laptop has three USB Type-C ports (two on the left flank and one on the right), all supporting Thunderbolt 4, USB4, DisplayPort, and power delivery. Any of them can be used to charge the laptop or (with an adapter) connect to an external monitor. But while a 3.5mm audio jack is included, you won't find any HDMI or USB Type-A port, which disappoints at this size. The laptop's wireless hardware is robust, with up-to-date Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and optional mobile broadband.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Dell's Latitude also goes heavy on the extras. It has a decent 1080p webcam with Windows Hello face recognition capability, a sliding privacy shutter, a fingerprint reader built into the power button, and loud, crisp, upward-firing speakers. 

Testing the Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1: Intel's Core Ultra 7 165U Struggles to Stand Out

While PCMag has benchmarked more than a dozen Intel Core Ultra laptops to date, the Latitude is the first we've seen with Intel's Core Ultra 7 165U, a processor positioned between the more common Core Ultra 7 155H and the high-end Core Ultra 9 185H. 

For our benchmark comparisons, I selected a mix of recent 14-inch (well, 13.5-inch in the case of the HP Dragonfly G4's 3:2 aspect ratio display) clamshells and convertibles. Some, like the MSI Commercial 14, join the Latitude in targeting corporations and organizations. Others, like Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon and X1 Yoga, attract enterprise buyers and individuals looking for a sturdy professional laptop.

Productivity and Content Creation Tests

We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL's PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.

Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 renders a complex scene using the company's Cinema 4D engine. Following that, Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Finally, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems. It uses Adobe's famous image editor, in Creative Cloud version 22, to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes various general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks, ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

The 9450 2-in-1 is fast enough for everyday apps like Microsoft Word and Excel, but its overall performance was not competitive. The Core Ultra 7 165H simply failed to stand out from the crowd. On the contrary, the Dell trailed some Core Ultra 7 155H systems like the X1 Carbon, not to mention older laptops with more powerful (and power-hungry) 13th Generation Core H-series processors.

Graphics Tests

We test the graphics inside all laptops and desktops with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).

We also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5 to further measure GPUs, which stresses low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests are rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics, and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation, respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better.

None of these laptops is designed to play the latest games, of course, but the Latitude 9450 2-in-1 again struggled to break out of the pack. Its Intel Arc integrated graphics edged the Iris Xe silicon of older systems but didn't shine against other Core Ultra competitors.

Battery and Display Tests

We evaluate battery life by looping a locally stored 720p video (the short film Tears of Steel), played full screen with brightness and audio volume set to 50% and 100%, respectively. We ensure each laptop's battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and keyboard backlighting turned off.

To rate laptop screen quality, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor to gauge each display's color coverage (percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 gamuts or palettes) and brightness in nits (candelas per square meter) at its 50% and 100% settings.

The Latitude's battery life isn't record-setting, but it's excellent. It took the silver medal behind the HP with more than 18 hours and 30 minutes of video playback. That's stamina you'll appreciate in real-world use. Its IPS touch screen's color coverage was acceptable, though nowhere near the vivid hues provided by laptops with OLED displays. However, it did excel in brightness, so this laptop will serve you well in both glaringly bright and dimly lit office settings.

Verdict: This One's for the IT Department

The Dell Latitude 9450 2-in-1 is a perfectly serviceable business convertible that falls competitively short on performance. Compared with several other laptops with similar specs, the Dell falls behind. It's not unbearably slow, and it's arguably overpowered for undemanding tasks like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. But if you need a 14-inch machine for video editing or 3D rendering, this isn't it. 

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

On the positive side, the Latitude is a sleek laptop with lengthy battery life. Nor does it compromise on the keyboard, touchpad, webcam, or speakers. Its wireless connectivity is excellent, though you can't connect an HDMI monitor or USB-A peripheral without a dongle. It's not a winner in terms of value, but most enterprise laptops target IT managers ordering dozens or hundreds of machines at a discount instead of one or two at the list price. While the Latitude 9450 2-in-1 is a fine convertible laptop for the office, small offices and individuals will be better off with a Lenovo ThinkBook, ThinkPad, or one of Dell's consumer systems.