As Dell has reconfigured its product lines, the Pro Premium replaces what used to be the company’s Latitude 9000 business laptop. It fits squarely in the middle of Dell’s lineup between the Pro and Pro Max lines and offers a nice balance across aesthetics, performance, weight, and battery life. The Pro 14 Premium notebook isn’t going to win any best-of awards, but it will help you get the job done —and with its 5G connectivity, you’ll be able to get that job done pretty much anywhere.
The laptop came configured with an Intel Core Ultra 7 268V with vPro, 32GB of LPDDR5X memory, 512GB of storage, and an 8MP webcam. It was also equipped with Intel’s BE201 Wi-Fi 7 chipset, accompanied by a Qualcomm X72 modem inside of a Dell 5G module. The display is a 14-inch non-touch FHD+ sRGB display capable of 400 nits brightness. (Dell also offers a touch version with an OLED or IPS panel, which I did not review.)
The base battery is a two-cell 40Wh unit, although the laptop as reviewed came with a larger three-cell 60Wh battery with express charging capability via a 65W adapter. The larger battery is a $15 upgrade, and for my money, it’s a total no-brainer — especially considering that an optional three-year warranty on the smaller battery is $20. As with most notebooks using chips from Intel’s Lunar Lake family, the battery will last all day with great standby power, although this system will run a little longer due to its 1200P, lower-brightness screen. Unfortunately, the charging adapter feels pretty cheap compared to what I’ve seen from Dell’s competitors; if you want a nicer GaN charger, it will cost you an additional $30. All of this comes in a fairly simple design that’s quite lightweight at 2.52 pounds.
The design of this laptop is muted and fit for a professional appearance, although it doesn’t feel as premium as some of Dell’s previous notebooks. The laptop was extremely quiet; the included Dell Optimizer software is set by default for quietness but can also be adjusted if performance throttling becomes a problem. Performance was roughly in line with the other laptops based on Lunar Lake CPUs, but it really depends on which SKU of CPU you decide to configure with. Because Lunar Lake has on-chip memory, Dell only offers the 268V SKU with 32GB of memory, the maximum allowed by the platform.
The keyboard experience was very good with very large chiclet-style keys that are easy to type on. A tiny fingerprint sensor is integrated into the small power button. The collaboration touchpad, a $60 option, was one of the design’s more distinctive features, but other companies’ touchpads have better haptics. Capacitive buttons on the top of the touchpad that enable different common unified communications app functions have been very nice to have during Zoom and Teams calls. I found myself using them and really liked that they are also indicators for being muted or unmuted. You may want to consider whether those features are worth the extra money, though.
This laptop checks all the I/O boxes with Thunderbolt 4, a full-size HDMI port, a USB-A port, and USB-C ports with TB4 for charging on either side. It also has a headphone jack, although I think users would be better served with another USB-C port instead.
The Wi-Fi on this laptop is decent, but the real star of the show is the 5G connectivity, which is extremely useful for travel. Too many Wi-Fi networks are borderline unusable, but I was able to easily switch to 5G, even though Microsoft still needs to work on the transition from 5G to Wi-Fi when authenticating to a new network. Windows will sometimes automatically connect to a Wi-Fi network that it hasn’t authenticated yet, disconnecting from 5G without finishing the connection to Wi-Fi. Even so, I generally preferred the 5G experience and think it’s worth the $260 upgrade for better connectivity, improved security, and always-on AI. I also enjoyed using the 8MP webcam for conference calls, including the Windows Hello integration, which includes presence detection as well.
The screen’s 14-inch 1980 x 1200 resolution offers a nice aspect ratio. I liked the matte display but also wish that my model came standard with the $240 tandem OLED option with its higher resolution and touch capability. That said, there is a battery-life penalty that you will pay for OLED, even with tandem technology.
Dell builds proprietary software into this laptop, such as the simple and useful Dell Optimizer. The Support Assist experience could be smoothed out and made easier to use. I’m new to the Dell Trusted Device app, but I liked the interface — and having a dedicated place for security. I think the security score that it provides to the user is good, but showing a score of 100 could also lull users into complacency. The color-coded scores for vulnerability detection are nice because they show exactly where a user might be vulnerable or where they’re safe. It would also be nice to have some active security measures like malware scanners in place that the user is aware of to create a greater sense of security. The laptop comes with one year of CrowdStrike Endpoint Protection.
As configured — and at the time of writing — this laptop costs $2,400, but remember that laptop prices at all Tier One vendors change daily or weekly and depend on the size of the organization placing the order. I would expect this laptop with these specs to generally sell in the $1,500 range, or possibly $1,750 with the 5G modem included. The warranty is for three years, standard for business laptops; it helps enterprises to protect their investment and sets a three-year amortization expectation.
I took this laptop with me all around the world, and the ability to not think about its weight or whether it would hold a charge was very reassuring. The 5G connectivity and Dell security software gave me an added “security blanket” level of comfort that I think should be the default for anyone who’s on the road or needs to have a backup internet connection. Working with this laptop was enjoyable, even if it didn’t have the best specs or exactly the configuration that I would have built. It will be interesting to see what this laptop looks like when Dell refreshes it with the upcoming Panther Lake chipset from Intel, which is even more powerful and efficient.
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