Dell Latitude 3450 Notebook Review

The choice of materials is limited to plastic parts, which only differ slightly in color. The display's back and base unit feature a dark gray color. Another, darker gray is used for the keyboard and display area when opened. Almost invisible blue dots glitter on the otherwise matte surface. The review laptop's feel is mostly satisfactory. As is often seen, the spacing between the display and the bezel is, unfortunately, too big, and thus very nasty dust will accumulate there. Opening the casing always produced a loud creaking noise. Beyond that, the keyboard and display back were easy to dent. We did not find any major flaws in terms of gaps or other processing issues. Dell's laptop is not a disagreeable companion with a weight of 2050 grams. Its maximum height of 25 mm is on par with Acer's device.

The manufacturer has chosen the positioning for the interfaces well. All ports are in the rear on the right and left side edges. Consequently, connected cables will not obstruct the work space on the desk. The only drawback is that only two of the three USB ports support the USB 3.0 standard.

Although Dell's Latitude does not have any dedicated maintenance covers, the large base unit can be lifted off after removing only two screws. The cover should, however, be removed with extreme care because many of the plastic clips might break. The battery, working memory, hard drive and Wi-Fi module are easy to take out after removal.

The installed Intel Core i5-5200U CPU operates with a clock speed of 2.2 GHz, which can be increased up to 2.7 GHz via Turbo Boost. The "U" in the name indicates an energy-efficient processor. Intel specifies a TDP of 15 watts for it. We will analyze how the dual-core CPU fares compared with its contenders based on Cinebench R15. In contrast to the precursor CPU from the Haswell line, Dell's laptop achieves a 9% better score in the multi-core sector.

There are no performance losses when AC mode cannot be used. Cinebench R15 clocked stably with 2.6 GHz in battery mode and achieves the same score in the multi-core test.

More comparisons and details can be found in the corresponding article in our FAQ.

Working with Dell's Latitude 3450 was always speedy. SSD users will, however, notice the difference to a HDD. The PCMark 7 system benchmark confirms exactly this subjective impression. Dell's device reaps in an approximately 19% higher score with 2856 points than our previously tested Acer TravelMate. We have to point out that this difference will be marginally lower when selecting a Latitude configuration with a price closer to that of Acer's laptop.

As to the storage device, Dell's Latitude 3450 uses a 1 TB magnet hard drive that spins with 5400 rpm. Lower-priced models of the lineup utilize a 500 GB hard drive. Users who want more speed will have to organize a hard drive on their own because Dell does not list any options. CrystalDiskMark records normal rates for this model type.

An Intel HD Graphics 5500 serves as the graphics unit. The processor graphics card supports important standards like OpenCL 2.0 and DirectX 11.2. A clear performance advantage over the former version becomes obvious here. Acer's laptop with an Intel HD Graphics 4400 achieves an approximately 30% lower performance than our office laptop.

Like with the CPU, the performance remains constant in battery mode, and thus the same scores were achieved in 3DMark 11.

Intel's HD Graphics 5500 provides a decent boost particularly compared with the Haswell generation. However, it does not yet enable enjoying newer games. Some older games from 2013 are rendered smoothly. We selected Tomb Raider from 2013 to acquire a comparison rate with Acer's device. Intel's HD Graphics 4400 in Acer's TravelMate P246 laptop only managed a smooth frame rate of 37 fps using minimum settings. The stronger graphics card in Dell's device benefits here and achieves 54 frames per second. The advantage over the TravelMate is that the review sample achieves playable conditions even when using medium quality settings.

System Noise

The fans are never active in idle mode. Solely a subtle HDD noise is audible every now and again. The Latitude does not really get loud under load, either. The noise changes in a perceptible range that, however, is quickly drowned out by ambient noise.

The installed speakers correspond to the minimum standard of modern laptops. The rather medium volume limits music enjoyment when turning up the speakers. External devices will have to be used for a really pleasing sound spectrum. The balance of the existing mids and trebles nevertheless ensures very clear playback.

Power Consumption

It ultimately becomes evident that Dell's Latitude is stronger than the TravelMate in power consumption. The review sample guzzles 2 watts more already when idling. The biggest difference between minimum and maximum power consumption is seen during load. Our office device demands between 32.2 watts and 33.6 watts. Acer's laptop requires 23.7 to 34.7 watts.

The manufacturer treats its Latitude to a 4-cell lithium-ion battery with a capacity of 58 Wh. We ascertain a real-life runtime in our Wi-Fi test. Details about our test procedure can be found here. Dell's laptop lasts approximately 8 hours and will thus even manage a normal workday without external power. A direct comparison with the contender is not possible because its Wi-Fi runtime was analyzed using a former test procedure.