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MagyarDell Latitude 9430 2-in-1 convertible review: The Intel 12th gen upgrade
After having fully refreshed the series last year with the Latitude 9420 2-in-1, this year's Latitude 9430 2-in-1 is a relatively minor step forward for the series. The latest model incorporates Intel 12th gen Alder Lake-U CPUs to replace the 11th gen Tiger Lake-U options on the Latitude 9420 2-in-1. There are some other upgrades as well that we'll go over in the review, but the chassis design remains unchanged and so most of our existing comments on the Latitude 9420 2-in-1 also apply here for the Latitude 9430 2-in-1.
Our test unit with the Core i7-1265U CPU, 16 GB of soldered RAM, QHD+ 1600p touchscreen, and 512 GB NVMe SSD can be found online for approximately $2700 USD. Core i5-1245U SKUs are also available, but the QHD+ panel is fixed for the 2-in-1 form factor. Competitors in this space include other 14-inch office-centric laptops like the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga G7, HP EliteBook 840 series, MSI Summit E14 Flip, LG Gram 14T90P, or Huawei MateBook 14.
More Dell reviews:
Potential Competitors in Comparison
Rating | Date | Model | Weight | Height | Size | Resolution | Best Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 89.8 % | 08/2022 | Dell Latitude 9430 2-in-1 i7-1265U, Iris Xe G7 96EUs | 1.5 kg | 13.94 mm | 14.00" | 2560x1600 | |
| 89 % | 07/2021 | Dell Latitude 9420 2-in-1 i7-1185G7, Iris Xe G7 96EUs | 1.5 kg | 13.94 mm | 14.00" | 2560x1600 | |
| 86.1 % | 07/2022 | MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo A12MT i7-1260P, Iris Xe G7 96EUs | 1.6 kg | 17.9 mm | 14.00" | 2880x1800 | |
| 87.5 % | 05/2022 | LG Gram 14T90P i5-1135G7, Iris Xe G7 80EUs | 1.2 kg | 17 mm | 14.00" | 1900x1200 | |
| 89.4 % | 05/2022 | Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga G7 21CE002HGE i7-1270P, Iris Xe G7 96EUs | 1.5 kg | 15.53 mm | 14.00" | 1920x1200 | |
| 86.5 % | 05/2022 | Asus ZenBook Flip 14 UN5401QA-KN085W R7 5800H, Vega 8 | 1.4 kg | 15.9 mm | 14.00" | 2880x1800 |
Case
Dell has seemingly dropped the lighter gray color of the Latitude 9420 2-in-1 for darker tones on the Latitude 9430 2-in-1. There are otherwise no major visual changes beyond the distinctive new color.
The design is still one the smallest and thinnest in the 14-inch size category even after a year in the market. It's not any lighter, however, since the model is generally packed with more features including optional 5G connectivity.
Connectivity
Port options have not changed from the Latitude 9420 2-in-1. It would have been great to see USB-A 3.2 Gen. 2 ports instead of Gen. 1, but not many devices take advantage of Gen. 2 speeds, anyway.
SD Card Reader
Transfer rates from the MicroSD card reader are some of the fastest on a subnotebook. When compared to the Asus ZenBook Flip 14, for example, file transfers are about 2x faster on the Dell when using a UHS-II card.
| SD Card Reader | |
| average JPG Copy Test (av. of 3 runs) | |
| Dell Latitude 9430 2-in-1 (AV Pro UHS-II V60) | |
| Dell Latitude 9420 2-in-1 (AV PRO microSD 128 GB V60) | |
| Asus ZenBook Flip 14 UN5401QA-KN085W (AV Pro SD microSD 128 GB V60) | |
| LG Gram 14T90P (AV Pro V60) | |
| MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo A12MT (AV Pro V60) | |
| maximum AS SSD Seq Read Test (1GB) | |
| Dell Latitude 9420 2-in-1 (AV PRO microSD 128 GB V60) | |
| Dell Latitude 9430 2-in-1 (AV Pro UHS-II V60) | |
| Asus ZenBook Flip 14 UN5401QA-KN085W (AV Pro SD microSD 128 GB V60) | |
| LG Gram 14T90P (AV Pro V60) | |
| MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo A12MT (AV Pro V60) | |
Communication
5G is now an option for the series. However, the feature must be configured before purchasing because the antennae are otherwise not included to discourage users from installing their own 4G or 5G modules.
| Networking | |
| iperf3 transmit AX12 | |
| Asus ZenBook Flip 14 UN5401QA-KN085W | |
| Dell Latitude 9420 2-in-1 | |
| iperf3 receive AX12 | |
| Asus ZenBook Flip 14 UN5401QA-KN085W | |
| Dell Latitude 9420 2-in-1 | |
| iperf3 receive AXE11000 6GHz | |
| Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga G7 21CE002HGE | |
| Dell Latitude 9430 2-in-1 | |
| MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo A12MT | |
| iperf3 transmit AXE11000 6GHz | |
| Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga G7 21CE002HGE | |
| MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo A12MT | |
| Dell Latitude 9430 2-in-1 | |
Webcam
Dell has upped the webcam resolution from 720p to 1080p for a sharper picture. HP is one step ahead in this regard as a number of Spectre and EliteBook models have already begun shipping with 5 MP webcams.
Maintenance
The bottom panel remains very easy to remove. There isn't much to service beyond the SSD and battery, however, as the WLAN and RAM modules are soldered.
Accessories and Warranty
There are no extras in the box beyond the AC adapter and paperwork. The PN7522W active pen must be purchased separately for $80 to $110 USD.
Input Devices
Keyboard and Touchpad
When compared to the keyboards on a HP EliteBook or Spectre, the keyboard on our Latitude is slightly quieter but softer. It's not any less comfortable as it mostly comes down to user preference. However, an extra point goes to the HP models as they incorporate a dedicated key for launching HP specific apps like Command Center or myHP. Such a key on the Dell Latitude for launching Optimizer or Power Manager would have been very useful.
Display
The AU Optronics B140QAN IPS panel on last year's model has returned meaning users can expect the same viewing experience between the Latitude 9420 2-in-1 and Latitude 9430 2-in-1. Still, it would have been great to at least see new options with faster refresh rates or even OLED like on the latest Asus ZenBook 14 or HP Spectre series. The very slow black-white and gray-gray response times in particular continue to be noticeable. The panel is nonetheless excellent for office-type workloads where slow response times have less of an impact.
Dell advertises full sRGB coverage which we can independently confirm. We wouldn't expect anything less from a high-end Latitude 9000 series model.
We encountered a bug on our unit where the brightness would not change within the 0 to 28 percent brightness setting range. Brightness would be stuck at 32 nits until the setting reaches 29 percent or higher. Dell is aware of this issue.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Brightness Distribution: 90 %
Center on Battery: 517.7 cd/m²
Contrast: 1569:1 (Black: 0.33 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 3.38 | 0.55-29.43 Ø5.1, calibrated: 0.41
ΔE Greyscale 4 | 0.57-98 Ø5.3
79.4% AdobeRGB 1998 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
100% sRGB (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
79.4% Display P3 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
Gamma: 2.13
| Dell Latitude 9430 2-in-1 AU Optronics B140QAN, IPS, 2560x1600, 14.00 | Dell Latitude 9420 2-in-1 AU Optronics B140QAN, IPS, 2560x1600, 14.00 | MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo A12MT AU Optronics B140QAN04.R, IPS, 2880x1800, 14.00 | LG Gram 14T90P LG Philips LP140WU1-SPA1, IPS, 1900x1200, 14.00 | Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga G7 21CE002HGE MNE007JA1-1, IPS, 1920x1200, 14.00 | Asus ZenBook Flip 14 UN5401QA-KN085W SDC4154, OLED, 2880x1800, 14.00 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Display | 1% | 10% | 12% | -8% | 17% | |
| Display P3 Coverage | 79.4 | 80.7 2% | 97.8 23% | 98.8 24% | 69.3 -13% | 99.7 26% |
| sRGB Coverage | 100 | 100 0% | 99.9 0% | 100 0% | 99.7 0% | 100 0% |
| AdobeRGB 1998 Coverage | 79.4 | 79.7 0% | 85.9 8% | 71.3 -10% | 98.6 24% | |
| Response Times | 9% | 64% | 21% | 34% | 96% | |
| Response Time Grey 50% / Grey 80% * | 63.6 ? | 54 ? 15% | 16.9 ? 73% | 44 ? 31% | 42 ? 34% | 2 ? 97% |
| Response Time Black / White * | 33.6 ? | 32.8 ? 2% | 15.4 ? 54% | 30 ? 11% | 22.4 ? 33% | 2 ? 94% |
| PWM Frequency | ||||||
| Screen | -45% | -33% | -5% | 8% | -80% | |
| Brightness middle | 517.7 | 483.6 -7% | 496.7 -4% | 305.5 -41% | 371 -28% | 366 -29% |
| Brightness | 493 | 465 -6% | 468 -5% | 289 -41% | 363 -26% | 369 -25% |
| Brightness Distribution | 90 | 92 2% | 87 -3% | 87 -3% | 92 2% | 96 7% |
| Black Level * | 0.33 | 0.32 3% | 0.3 9% | 0.27 18% | 0.21 36% | |
| Contrast | 1569 | 1511 -4% | 1656 6% | 1131 -28% | 1767 13% | |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 * | 3.38 | 3.69 -9% | 3.93 -16% | 3.31 2% | 1.3 62% | 2.84 16% |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 max. * | 6.25 | 5.97 4% | 7.9 -26% | 6.12 2% | 2.6 58% | 5.29 15% |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 calibrated * | 0.41 | 2.05 -400% | 1.27 -210% | 0.8 -95% | 2.81 -585% | |
| Greyscale dE 2000 * | 4 | 3.5 12% | 5.9 -48% | 1.9 52% | 2.1 47% | 2.32 42% |
| Gamma | 2.13 103% | 2.04 108% | 2.04 108% | 2.04 108% | 2.15 102% | 2.44 90% |
| CCT | 6186 105% | 6158 106% | 7618 85% | 6706 97% | 6759 96% | 6170 105% |
| Total Average (Program / Settings) | -12% /
-28% | 14% /
-10% | 9% /
2% | 11% /
8% | 11% /
-27% |
* ... smaller is better
The display is not calibrated very well out of the box with average grayscale and color DeltaE values at 4 and 3.38, respectively. We're able to get these average values down to just 0.7 and 0.41 with an X-Rite colorimeter. We recommend installing our ICM profile above to better exploit the full sRGB coverage of the panel.
Display Response Times
| ↔ Response Time Black to White | ||
|---|---|---|
| 33.6 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 17.2 ms rise |  |
| ↘ 16.4 ms fall | ||
| The screen shows slow response rates in our tests and will be unsatisfactory for gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.1 (minimum) to 240 (maximum) ms. » 88 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (21.9 ms). | ||
| ↔ Response Time 50% Grey to 80% Grey | ||
| 63.6 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 33.2 ms rise |  |
| ↘ 30.4 ms fall | ||
| The screen shows slow response rates in our tests and will be unsatisfactory for gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.25 (minimum) to 636 (maximum) ms. » 97 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (34.5 ms). | ||
Screen Flickering / PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation)
| Screen flickering / PWM not detected |  | ||
In comparison: 54 % of all tested devices do not use PWM to dim the display. If PWM was detected, an average of 18993 (minimum: 5 - maximum: 3846000) Hz was measured. | |||
At 500 nits, the display is brighter than on many other 14-inch laptops for better outdoor visibility than the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga G7 or LG Gram 16 2-in-1. Glare is still inevitable in most scenarios, however, but onscreen text and images remain clear and colorful if working under shade.
Performance
Testing Conditions
We set our unit to Ultra Performance mode via the Dell Optimizer software prior to running any benchmarks below. We love that Optimizer has a setting to synchronize Windows power profile settings to the current Optimizer performance setting. For example, if Optimizer is set to Quiet mode, then the Windows power profile will automatically switch to Power Saver mode. If Optimizer is set to Ultra Performance mode, then Windows will automatically switch to its equivalent Performance mode and so on. This fixes the problem of having conflicting thermal settings across multiple applications (i.e., Windows set to Power Saver mode while Optimizer is set to Ultra Performance mode).
Annoyingly, Optimizer cannot be maximized and so its very small window size is fixed. For having so many buttons and options, the app could definitely benefit from a bigger UI.
Processor
CPU gains over the 11th gen Core i7-1185G7 in last year's Latitude 9420 2-in-1 are significant especially in terms of multi-thread performance. Our Core i7-1265U offers 20 percent and 55 percent faster single-thread and multi-thread performance, respectively, when compared to the Core i7-1185G7. The CPU is even able to stand neck-to-neck with the Core i7-1260P despite the fact that the Core P series is marketed as the faster family. Results are especially good after having just experienced the very disappointing Core i5-1235U.
Performance sustainability could have been better. When running CineBench R15 xT in a loop, the initial score of 1572 points would steadily fall and stabilize at around 1230 points to represent a performance drop of around 20 percent over time due to thermal limitations.
Cinebench R15 Multi Loop
Cinebench R23: Multi Core | Single Core
Cinebench R15: CPU Multi 64Bit | CPU Single 64Bit
Blender: v2.79 BMW27 CPU
7-Zip 18.03: 7z b 4 | 7z b 4 -mmt1
Geekbench 5.2 - 5.5: Multi-Core | Single-Core
HWBOT x265 Benchmark v2.2: 4k Preset
LibreOffice : 20 Documents To PDF
R Benchmark 2.5: Overall mean
Cinebench R23: Multi Core | Single Core
Cinebench R15: CPU Multi 64Bit | CPU Single 64Bit
Blender: v2.79 BMW27 CPU
7-Zip 18.03: 7z b 4 | 7z b 4 -mmt1
Geekbench 5.2 - 5.5: Multi-Core | Single-Core
HWBOT x265 Benchmark v2.2: 4k Preset
LibreOffice : 20 Documents To PDF
R Benchmark 2.5: Overall mean
* ... smaller is better
AIDA64: FP32 Ray-Trace | FPU Julia | CPU SHA3 | CPU Queen | FPU SinJulia | FPU Mandel | CPU AES | CPU ZLib | FP64 Ray-Trace | CPU PhotoWorxx
System Performance
PCMark 10 scores are consistently higher than what we recorded on the older Latitude 9420 2-in-1 albeit by just a few percentage points. Typical office loads like web browsing, video streaming, or light editing aren't going to feel much faster when compared to most 11th gen Core i7-1165G7 laptops as a result.
CrossMark: Overall | Productivity | Creativity | Responsiveness
| CrossMark / Productivity | |
| MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo A12MT | |
| Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga G7 21CE002HGE | |
| Dell Latitude 9430 2-in-1 | |
| Average Intel Core i7-1265U, Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EUs (1230 - 1586, n=7) | |
| LG Gram 14T90P | |
| CrossMark / Responsiveness | |
| MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo A12MT | |
| Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga G7 21CE002HGE | |
| Dell Latitude 9430 2-in-1 | |
| Average Intel Core i7-1265U, Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EUs (1193 - 1521, n=7) | |
| LG Gram 14T90P | |
| PCMark 10 Score | 5474 points | |
Help | ||
* ... smaller is better
DPC Latency
LatencyMon reveals no major DPC issues when opening multiple tabs of our homepage or when running Prime95 stress. 4K video playback at 60 FPS is perfect as well with no dropped frames.
| DPC Latencies / LatencyMon - interrupt to process latency (max), Web, Youtube, Prime95 | |
| MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo A12MT | |
| Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga G7 21CE002HGE | |
| LG Gram 14T90P | |
| Asus ZenBook Flip 14 UN5401QA-KN085W | |
| Dell Latitude 9430 2-in-1 | |
| Dell Latitude 9420 2-in-1 | |
* ... smaller is better
Storage Devices
Our test unit utilizes a 512 GB Toshiba Kioxia NVMe SSD with optional Opal self-encryption. Transfer rates are good and relatively steady, but write rates are a lot slower than on the Samsung PM981a commonly found on flagship Ultrabooks.
