Dell Latitude E7440 Touch Business Ultrabook Review

The Dell Latitude E7440 is not quite as sexy as some of the sleek  ultrabooks out there, but it’s also not as square as most business notebooks we've been subjected to over the years. The Dell Latitude E7440 thus continues a trend we’ve been noticing lately of companies gussying up their business-class laptops, while maintaining a professional look so as not to distract in the conference room.

It’s tough trying to straddle two worlds with a product line, offering a business notebook with consumer features to entice end users, but Dell has been doing as good a job of it as any company. Primarily, that’s because it’s been rolling out a ton ultrabooks, and the slim and light machines just tend to be attractive.

The Latitude E7440 is indeed thin at just 21mm, and with a 3-cell battery it weighs in at just 3.6lbs. If the chassis doesn’t do it for you, some of the specifications and features surely will, starting with the centerpiece of this computer: the beautiful HD display with which you’ll be just as comfortable watching a movie as you’ll be creating a PowerPoint presentation or typing up a document.

Dell Latitude E7440 Specifications & Features

The 14-inch touch display boasts a resolution of 1920x1080 and Corning Gorilla glass, and the integrated webcam (which is integrated into the display housing) is light-sensitive and has a noise-cancelling microphone too. For connectivity, the Latitude E7240 includes Intel Centrino Advanced -N + WiMAX 7260 with 802.11n WiFi plus Bluetooth, as well as WiDi support.

The Dell Latitude E7440 ships with Windows 8 Pro (of course you can easily upgrade to Windows 8.1 any time) and runs an Intel Core i5-4300U (1.9GHz) processor with Intel HD Graphics 4400.


There’s 4GB of DDR3-1600MHz RAM inside, although it’s just a single 4GB DIMM; there’s an open slot if you want to configure your order from Dell with more or simply add it later yourself. For storage, Dell went with a 256GB SSD, which is somewhat common in ultrabooks and offers a nice bump in storage performance over traditional HDDs while sacrificing a bit of capacity.

There are three USB 3.0 ports, mini-DisplayPort, HDMI, Ethernet, stereo headphone/mic jack, Kensington lock port, and a docking connector that supports some existing laptop docks. There’s also a WiFi toggle on/off switch on one side and an SD card slot on the other.

Business notebooks tend to take as much if not more of a beating than personal machines (especially as some laptops perform double duty at work and at home), and so they need a little extra in the endurance department. Dell slogs its 7000 series notebooks through MIL-STD-810G testing, exposing them to high altitudes, high pressure, high and low temperatures, humidity, dirt and dust, vibrations, spills, and shocks to ensure that they’re sufficiently durable to withstand the abuses inflicted by the most careless and clumsy employee.

Let’s take a closer look at the overall design and other features of the Latitude E7440.