Dell Latitude 7400 2-In-1 Review: A Lethal Weapon For Road Warriors
Dell Latitude 7400 2-In-1: Experience, Design, And Build Quality
Crafted from machined aluminum with diamond cut edges and weighing a hair under 3 lbs., the Dell 7400 2-in-1 is solid, sturdy, and built to last. Nothing about this machine feels shoddy, flimsy, or thrown together on-the-cheap. From the touch- and ink-enabled glossy display, to the backlit keyboard (which rests in a shallow, scalloped cutout), to the gesture-enabled trackpad, everything about the Dell 7400 2-in-1 is crisp and well-engineered. Even the stylus is solid and precise, and it's magnetized, so it simply clicks into place on whichever side of the machine you like, and the touchpad, while nothing fancy, does its job just fine and is more comfortable than most.
It took a minute or two to train Windows Hello and another 30 seconds to configure the Dell ExpressSign-In (which mainly involves telling the machine how long it should wait before shutting down after you step away from it), and that was about it. There's virtually no pre-installed bloatware, other than a 30-day Microsoft Office trial. Several business and security utilities are available from Dell, as is appropriate with a business-oriented machine, but they don't show up on the desktop or nag the user. These include remote management and configuration tools suited for IT roll-out and diagnostics.
The ExpressSign-In functionality deserves some extra attention here. We found it to be extremely reliable and convenient. Configured with Windows Hello, ExpressSign-In auto-magically locks the 7400 when you walk away from the machine. Then, when you approach again, it will wake up and, once it sees your smiling face, quickly log you back in, all in a second or two. It's pretty slick. It's also a handy security measure, especially if you're the type that forgets to lock your machine anytime you step away.
Keep in mind that Windows itself has a similar built-in functionality called Dynamic Lock, but it requires that you pair the system with a phone. It works via Bluetooth, rather than IR, so the range is somewhat longer and thus may take quite a bit longer to register that you have walked away from the system. All in all, Dell's ExpressSign-In is slicker and more seamless in our opinion.