Dell Latitude Backlit Keyboard

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The Dell Latitude E7270 is a powerful, portable business notebook that can go the distance. The E7270's backlit keyboard has 1.6 mm of key travel, and feels nice and clicky, despite requiring. Depending on the model of your Dell computer and the features that are installed, it may or may not have a backlit keyboard. The easiest way to determine whether your computer is equipped with a backlit keyboard is to look at the F10, F6, or right arrow key (located in the lower right-hand corner).

  • Ratings Breakdown (1-10)

      • Software & Support
      • 9
      • Upgrade Capabilities
      • 9
      • Usability
      • 8
      • Design
      • 6
      • Performance
      • 8
      • Features
      • 8
      • Price/Value Rating
      • 5
      • Total Score:
      • 7.57
      • Rating 1 to 10, top score 10

  • Pros

    • High quality non-glare non-touch display (a touchscreen version is available for those who want it)
    • Silent operation under light usage and relatively quiet under load
    • Reasonably robust construction
    • Good run time with the high capacity battery option

  • Cons

    • Keyboard and touchpad offset to the left
    • Relatively expensive (unless bought at Dell Outlet)
    • Needs 90W PSU due to high battery charge rate

I thought I was happily content with my Latitude E7450 but recently my eyes started to complain which I deduced was a request for a larger screen. Coincidentally, a selection of the recently released Dell Latitude E5570 with the 15.6″ display appeared on Dell UK Outlet. I rummaged through the selection and opted for the only one which offered both a backlit keyboard and a significantly faster CPU than my current notebook. The listing also included 16GB of DDR4 RAM and a big, 84Whr, battery. Would this satisfy my eyes? How would I cope with the extra weight? Read this Dell Latitude E5570 review to find out how I got on with this relatively big beast …

Latitude notebooks are built to survive the treatment given out by business users who haven’t paid for the equipment out of their own pockets. They feature a durable chassis that has undergone extensive military-grade MIL-STD 810G testing to ensure the system can withstand real-world conditions. They are also designed to be easily serviceable or upgradeable although the ease of servicing is losing out to lower manufacturing cost: In 2008 there was just one screw securing the metal base of my Latitude E6400 but the E5570 has eight screws holding a plastic base in place. The overall feel is that this notebook is reasonably robust but not as solid as some of the older Latitudes).

Dell latitude backlit keyboard settings

Backlit Keyboard Dell Latitude E5470

The Dell Latitude E5570 has the same black colour scheme as my E7450 with an embossed Dell logo and grey hinge covers providing a hint of contrast. However, from the user’s viewpoint (looking at the screen) black provides no distracting glare and enhances the white lettering on the keyboard. Dell has recently changed the back of the display from metal to carbon fiber. This appears to provide sufficient protection to the display because my attempts to twist and push the back of the display do not affect the displayed image.

The hinges are stiff and hold the display firmly in position without any hint of wobble. These hinges are designed to allow the notebook display to be tipped back to lie horizontally.

The sides of the chassis and the display on the E5570 have straighter edges than the E7450 which provides no convenient finger-hold for opening the display. This is a step backwards.

There is no latch for the display and opening the computer is a two-handed task, not helped by the absence of any recess on the front to provide a finger hold for opening the computer. The bottom of the computer is dominated by the generous air vent, with a smaller vent over the location of the M.2 SSD. The bottom of the computer also contains Dell’s docking bay connector.

Removing the eight screws on the bottom provides access to the inside. The battery is located internally so there is no easy swap mid-way through a long day. The location of the battery under the palm rest not only provides a counter-balance to the display but also keeps it away from the hot components. Other easily accessible components are the RAM, SSD, WiFi and WWAN cards. Further dismantling, however, requires removal of a plastic frame which is held in place by numerous screws.

I opted for an E5570 with the six-cell battery. This is longer than the standard four-cell battery and occupies what would otherwise be the bay for a 2.5-inch storage drive which leaves the M.2 2280 slot in the corner as the only storage option (although there are reports that the WWAN slot can be used for a M.2 2242 SSD). The 2280 M.2 slot is configured to take both SATA and PCIe devices. Wisely, the SSD located away from the heat generating components.

Ports and Features

Unlike some notebook manufacturers, Dell continues to provide an RJ45 network cable socket. One improvement on the port layout compared to the E7450 is having two side-mounted USB ports although, while the E5570 has both VGA and HDMI ports, it doesn’t have a mini-DisplayPort. The audio socket has migrated further forward such that an audio cable now obstructs the area to the right side of the computer where I use a mouse.


Front side: Two loudspeakers under the front edge and the indicator lights near the right corner.Dell has taken a step backwards with the indicator lights. The minuscule LEDs near the front right corner are not visible when the computer is being used and no longer include a WiFi indicator


Back side ports left to right: Network, VGA, Micro SIM car holder, HDMI, USB 3.0, AC adapter


Left side: Only the fan exhaust and optional Smartcard slot (under palm rest). Thunderbolt-enabled versions will have the Thunderbolt port to the left of the fan


Right side, left to right: Audio socket, media card slot, two USB 3.0 ports, security slot.

The bottom of the computer includes Dell’s docking bay connector.

Screen and Speakers

An FHD (1920 x 1080) resolution non-glare display was on my list of essential requirements. The Dell Latitude E5570 has the AUO B156HW01 V1 panel which has excellent viewing angles and, I suspect, uses AUO’s AHVA technology. This display is very clear without the sparkly anti-glare coating I had encountered on the 14” E7440. Dell’s specs claim a 300 nit brightness which is more than adequate for normal indoor usage but would struggle in sunlight. Side-by-side comparison suggests it is slightly brighter at full brightness than my E7450.

The AUO panel’s color rendering is slightly bluish but I have adjusted it using my Spyder 4 Express calibrator which revealed that the display covers 98% of sRGB, which is better than most notebook panels. The viewing angles are very good (Dell claims ± 80° vertically and horizontally).

Dell located two speakers under the front side of the chassis. The speaker positioning on the angled edge benefits from the sound being reflected upwards when the computer is on a table top. Both audio quantity (Dell’s specs claim 2W per channel) and quality are good with a hint of bass although they are no match for an external speaker. The volume is more than sufficient for a medium sized room with no serious distortion when the volume is increased.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Dell Latitude E5570 keyboard has good travel (about 2.5mm (0.1 inch)) and includes the optional backlit keys which improves legibility of the letters under all lighting conditions. The backlight has three brightness settings: Dim; bright and off, with Fn+F10 stepping through these settings. While some notebooks have the keyboard fitted through holes in the overall palmrest, Dell’s approach is that the keyboard itself is screwed down from the top and the black plastic between the keys is a simple frame which covers the screws and clips into place. This facilitates replacement if required. While the Caps lock and microphone mute (Fn+F4) have indicator lights, Dell failed to provide a status light for the Num Lock. One way round this omission is to find a program call Tray Status which provides the key status in the notification area.

The extra size of the E5570 is used to add a numeric keypad to the right side of the basic keyboard which is exactly the same size and layout as the E7450. However, part of the left side of the E5570’s keyboard (over the fan) isn’t as solid as on the E7450. The touchpad is located centrally on the basic keyboard, so it is offset from the left of the center of the palmrest leaving minimal space for a left palm.

The touchpad on the E5570 is exactly the same type and size as on the E7450. The pad has separate buttons and also has a second set of buttons (with a middle button) for the pointing stick. The pad is quite usable and supports gestures.

Dell Latitude Backlit Keyboard Settings

The Intel i5-6440HQ CPU in my Dell Latitude E5570 deserves specific mention. While it is a quad-core CPU, it does not support hyperthreading and is therefore capable of running only four concurrent threads. Also, it is a nominal 45W CPU but down-rated to 35W using Intel’s cTDP down. I selected this CPU not because of the quad-core capability but because I hoped the speed when running one or two threads would be faster than the other i5 CPU options. Supporting the CPU is 2133MHz DDR4 RAM which offers higher bandwidth than the DDR3 RAM.

My Latitude E5570 was delivered with the following hardware (this was the configuration available on Dell UK Outlet which most closely matched my requirements and budget). There are numerous other configuration options.

  • Processor: 35W Intel Core vPro i5-6440HQ (up to 3.5GHz with Turbo Boost)
  • Graphics: Intel HD 530 (integrated in CPU package)
  • Display: 15.6” inch anti-glare 1920 x 1080 FHD non-glare wide viewing angle
  • Memory: 2 x 8GB DDR4-2133 1.2V RAM
  • Storage: 256GB Liteon L8H-256V2G-11 SATA M.2 2280 SSD
  • Wireless: Intel 8260 802.11ac (dual band + Bluetooth 4.1)
  • WWAN: Dell DW5811e 4G
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Dell (Alps) touchpad with separate buttons plus pointing stick in keyboard
  • 720p Webcam with twin microphones
  • 84Wh 6-cell battery
  • 90W PSU with 1m power cable
  • Windows 10 Pro 64-bit pre-installed
  • Dimensions: 378 x 253 x 25mm (including rubber pads about 2mm thick) or 14.9″ x 10.0″ x 1″
  • Notebook weight as received: 2.35kg / 5.2 lbs
  • Travel weight: 2.75kg / 6.1 lbs (with Dell 90W PSU and 1m mains cable)
  • 3-year next day on-site warranty

Benchmarks

The wPrime results demonstrate that the i5-6440HQ sits mid-way between the i5-6300U and the i7-6700HQ and shows that 4 cores without hyperthreading provides significantly better processing performance than 2 cores with hyperthreading. The CPU sustains 3.1GHz when wPrime is running 4 threads, 3.2GHz with 2 threads and 3.3GHz with one thread. Any performance reduction compared to a 45W rated CPU is therefore minimal.

Keyboard

wPrime processor comparison results (listed in seconds – lower scores mean better performance):

PCMark8 Home (Accelerated) measures overall system performance in Windows 8 for general activities from web browsing and video streaming to typing documents and playing games (higher scores mean better performance):

PCMark8 Work (Accelerated) measures overall system performance in Windows 8 for work-related productivity tasks (higher scores mean better performance):

3DMark 11 measures the overall gaming performance of the GPU (higher scores mean better performance):

The test results for 3DMark 11 show that the Intel HD 530 GPU is much slower than a powerful discrete GPU such as the Nvidia GTX 960M in the Dell XPS 15 9550.

Dell installed a Liteon L8H-256V2G-11 SSD in this E5570. This uses the M.2 2280 form factor with the SATA interface (faster PCIe SSDs are available). Performance is typical for an SSD of this capacity and interface.

Dell latitude backlit keyboard settings

CrystalDiskMark storage drive performance test:

Heat and Noise

The Dell Latitude E5570 has a cooling system designed for the combined output of a quad core CPU and discrete GPU. It stays silent under light to moderate usage although the base can warm up because the trigger temperature to start the fan is about 65°C. The E5570 also stays reasonably cool and quiet when under full CPU load. The maximum fan speed I have observed is 4200 rpm when the noise is due to the flow of air through the cooling system rather than the fan itself. I measured maximum external temperatures of 37°C on the keyboard and 36°C on the base after sustained full load operation although the CPU can reach about 85°C under sustained heavy load. HWiNFO reports that the maximum CPU package power is about 34W.

Battery Life

Move over little one: 15.6” E5570 on left, 14” E7450 on right.

Dell Latitude E6430 Keyboard Backlight

Dell offers 62Whr and 84Whr batteries for this notebook. The former can co-exist with a 2.5-inch storage device while the latter blocks the 2.5” bay. I opted for the higher capacity to improve the prospect of having a computer which could be used away from the power socket for a whole working day.

So how does the battery perform in typical usage? I first tried a simple rundown test playing an mp4 video at half display brightness. The computer shut down after 7 hours 51 minutes which indicates an average power drain of about 9W. That is about an hour longer than I achieved on the E7450 for the same test.

I then performed an everyday usage test which comprised working on this Dell Latitude E5570 review, web browsing and emails at about 30% display brightness (quite usable due to the excellent screen quality and high maximum brightness) with some short periods of inactivity. After 12 hours there was still 10% battery charge remaining which indicates that the system is capable of frugal operation in spite of the quad core CPU. However, heavy CPU usage would substantially reduce the run time, but 10 hours of light usage with a few bursts of greater activity is feasible while use of sleep (the power drain is about 0.7W) for any periods of inactivity will extend the time further.

Dell shipped my computer with a 90W power supply. However, I wondered how the computer would behave with a 65W PSU which is smaller, lighter and compatible according to the label on the bottom of the computer. With a fully charged battery the computer didn’t complain or throttle itself and the maximum power drain at the mains socket was about 55W. However, a working computer with a partly discharged battery resulted in the 65W PSU cutting out due to overload because the charge rate alone exceeds 45W. I’m surprised that the BIOS doesn’t check the PSU capacity and adjust the charge rate accordingly (the E4470 could work with a 45W PSU) and I hope Dell will realize this omission and rectify it in a future BIOS update so that I can reduce the travel weight at the expense of slower charging.

Backlit Keyboard Dell Latitude E5540

So, what are my conclusions about the E5570? My eyes love the extra size of the display and the quality is also excellent. My ears love the zero fan noise under light usage conditions. Overall performance feels more responsive due to the quad-core CPU. The high capacity battery provides 10 hours, maybe more, of light usage thanks to the relatively low power consumption of the CPU. Lastly, the E5570 is heavier than I would like but a large screen and high capacity battery inherently add weight.

Dell’s list prices for the Latitude notebooks aren’t attractive but for anyone who does their homework to figure out what they need and where they can compromise then closely monitoring Dell Outlet and sources of Dell Outlet coupons will usually provide something suitable at about half of the original price. You’ll need to frequently check the stock list at the Dell Outlet if you want to grab the right notebook before anyone else buys it.

Pros:

  • High quality non-glare non-touch display (a touchscreen version is available for those who want it)
  • Silent operation under light usage and relatively quiet under load
  • Reasonably robust construction
  • Good run time with the high capacity battery option

Cons:

  • Keyboard and touchpad offset to the left
  • Relatively expensive (unless bought at Dell Outlet)
  • Needs 90W PSU due to high battery charge rate