Dell's rebranding of its lineup of laptops has been somewhat confusing at first, considering how well-known the Latitude, XPS and Inspiron brands were. The Pro Premium lineup is supposed to be the new Latitude, and it has some offerings from Dell. I have been using a Dell Pro 14 Premium, which is priced at Rs 1,76,248, for a few weeks now and here's how my experience has been with it:
The Dell Pro 14 Premium comes in a magnesium chassis and weighs about 1.15kg, with not the thinnest but still a thin profile that makes it comfortable to carry around for work.
On the left side, you have a USB 3.1 Type-C port, along with HDMI 2.1 and the 3.5mm audio ports beside a little LED, while the right side carries another HDMI 2.1 port and a USB 3.2 Type-A port plus a Kensington lock. The Dell branding at the front is very familiar, and so is the vent plus rubber feet setup at the bottom that feels very much like a Latitude notebook.
Oh, and the physical shutter for the webcam is placed at the top railing of the lid and not at the front of the lid next to the webcam itself, as is often the case.
The 14.1-inch quad HD+ (1800x2880) 60Hz touchscreen display has good viewing angles with decent brightness. The display is good for watching content with its 16:10 aspect ratio, but it's not the crispest display around for the price tag—it still gives sufficient details. It produces slightly more vivid colours than I remember on the previous model, to some people's preference. HDR playback seemed okay at best, and nothing special in terms of details and contrast.
The backlit keyboard is well spaced out and is quite comfortable to type on for long documents, while having some nice feedback. The touchpad is spacious enough and is in a conventional buttonless form. The power button that is in line with the function keys also carries a fingerprint scanner for unlocking, and it works fine with Windows Hello.
Fitted with Intel's Lunar Lake Core Ultra 7 evo Edition (up to 2.2 GHz octa-core processor), Intel Arc integrated GPU, along with 32GB LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB Samsung TLC SSD, it's running on Windows 11 Pro 24H2 version. The laptop handled document editing, Excel work, multiple Web browsers and YouTube viewing without struggling. You can jump between apps and continue editing your documents or spreadsheets without any hiccups. Having said that, this isn't a machine meant for video editing or any kind of rendering, as it struggles with even a two-hour-long or 7-8 GB-sized video files. Other than that, for your work purposes, the machine doesn't disappoint.
Powered by a 60Wh battery, the laptop lasted me 2 days of usage on a single full charge quite frequently. I couldn't try the bundled charger as the one I got was broken, but using a standard 65-watt charger, the laptop charged fully in close to 1.5 hours. WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity on the device is solid and didn't cause any trouble during my usage.
All in all, the Dell Pro 14 Premium is a nice, well-built portable work laptop that performs well for work tasks and keeps up with its reliable battery life. It isn't meant for video work for sure, but otherwise this laptop is worth a check if you or your team are on the lookout for a laptop for work, including spreadsheets, research and decks.