Dell Pro 14 Premium review: Flagship OLED subnotebook for business

You can't really tell from its dull matte gray exterior, but the Dell Pro 14 Premium hides tons of upgrades and changes from last year's Latitude 7440 or Latitude 9440 series. Its most notable feature is arguably the new OLED touchscreen which brings a level of fidelity that was previously unavailable on the older Latitude 14. Meanwhile, the Lunar Lake CPU offers significant improvements when it comes to both graphics performance and power efficiency to the point where battery life is noticeably longer than the previous generation despite the overall faster performance and more demanding OLED panel.

While there are no major setbacks, a handful of minor ones are worth mentioning. As nice as the OLED panel may be, its 60 Hz refresh rate feels out-of-date when 90 Hz or greater is becoming commonplace. Upgrade options are limited when it comes to storage and photographers or editors in particular may loathe the absence of an integrated SD card reader to better take advantage of the OLED colors and faster integrated graphics power. The typing experience is slightly shallower and spongier than on an HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 which also happens to be thinner and lighter (albeit less repairable) than our Dell while carrying faster 120 Hz OLED options. The Dell Pro 14 Premium is still one of Dell's best subnoteooks for businesses and an improvement over the Latitude 14 predecessors, but it could use some extra oomph to push it past competitors even further.

The Dell Pro 14 Premium is now shipping at Dell starting at $1800 for the base Core Ultra 5 FHD+ configuration up to $2500 for the Core Ultra 7 QHD+ OLED configuration as reviewed.

The Dell Pro 14 Premium is a brand new business-centric series introduced this year to replace the older 14-inch Latitude 14 7400 or 9400 series. While the naming convention has changed, the model still shares many features with last year's Latitude 7440 or 9440 2-in-1 for that familiar Latitude feel.

Our test unit is a higher-end configuration with the Lunar Lake Core Ultra 7 268V CPU, 32 GB of RAM, and an OLED 1800p touchscreen for approximately $2500 USD. Lower-end options include the Core Ultra 5 236V and 1200p IPS non-touch display for $1800.

Alternatives to the Dell Pro 14 Premium include other flagship office subnotebooks like the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 or Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6.

More Dell reviews:

• Alienware 16 Area-51
• Dell 14 Plus
• Latitude 7030 Rugged Extreme
• XPS 13 9340
• Inspiron 14 Plus 7440

The skeleton is largely magnesium alloy with excellent rigidity and resistance to twisting and depressions. The issues we observed on the Latitude 7440 are not present on the Dell Pro 14 Premium and so overall impressions are more similar to the Latitude 9440.

The system doesn't feel particularly weaker or stronger than competing models like the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 or Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, but we do prefer the stiffer hinges of the Dell when compared to the HP.

There is one less USB-A port than on the Latitude 7440. To make up for this, one of the two USB-C ports has been moved to the right edge of the chassis for more ergonomic charging or docking.

An 8 MP webcam comes standard alongside IR and a physical shutter. Presence Detection is optional.

This is one of the first business PCs to ship with modular USB-C ports designed to be easily replaced if required. In comparison, USB-C ports are highly integrated onto the motherboards of most other laptops which can make repairs or replacements more difficult should they ever break. 

The model itself consists of 90 percent recycled magnesium by weight while the packaging consists of 100 percent recycled or renewed materials.

There are no extras in the retail box aside form the AC adapter and paperwork. A 3-year warranty with next business day on-site repair comes standard.

The zero-lattice keyboard is exactly the same here as it was on the Latitude 9440 2-in-1 for an identical typing experience. While aesthetically appealing, feedback could have been greater for the Enter key while travel is arguably on the shallow side.

We set Dell Optimizer to Performance mode prior to running the benchmarks below. The Optimizer power profiles can automatically sync with the regular Windows power profiles which is not always the case on laptops from Lenovo or HP.

The Core Ultra 7 268V is only slighter faster than the Raptor Lake Core i5-1345U or Core i7-1355U on last year's Latitude 14 series when it comes to traditional CPU tasks. This is very much intentional as Lunar Lake-V focuses on NPU, GPU, RAM, and overall efficiency gains rather than raw processor performance. Nonetheless, the Core Ultra 7 268V exhibits less throttling when stressed for more consistent performance over time as shown by our CineBench R15 xT loop test results below.