Dell Latitude 12 7000 2-in-1 review: Slick, overpriced, and underpowered

Style-conscious execs may dig it, but there are better options out there.

Andrew Williams

Due to the vagaries of how OEMs configure and market PCs in different parts of the world, there is some variation between the specs of default 7000 Series laptops sold in the US and UK. That said, it is possible to use Dell's configuration tool to come up with with identical specs.

Specs at a glance: Dell Latitude 12 7275 2-in-1
	Lowest	Best	As reviewed
SCREEN	1920×1080 IPS at 12.5-inch, multitouch	3840×2160 IPS at 12.5-inch, multitouch	3840×2160 IPS at 12.5-inch, multitouch
OS	Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU	6th Generation Intel Core m5-6Y57 (Dual-core, 1.1GHz, 4MB cache)	6th Generation Intel Core m7-6Y75 (Dual-core, 1.2GHz, 4MB cache)	6th Generation Intel Core m7-6Y75 (Dual-core, 1.2GHz, 4MB cache)
RAM	4GB DDR3L	8GB DDR3L	8GB DDR3L
GPU	Intel HD 515
HDD	128GB M.2 SATA SSD	256GB M.2 SATA SSD	256GB M.2 SATA SSD
NETWORKING	Intel 8260 Dual band 2x2 802.11ac 2.4/5GHz + Bluetooth 4.1
PORTS	2 x USB 3.1 Type-C (Thunderbolt), microSD reader
SIZE	Height: 8.22mm (0.32") x Width: 290.87mm (11.45") x Depth: 192.85mm (7.59")
WEIGHT	1.61lbs (0.73kg)
BATTERY	2-Cell (30Whr) battery
WARRANTY	3 years
NOTE	Dell's prices can vary wildly thanks to its "instant savings." The prices below include VAT; but the prices on the Dell website, as they're for businesses, are excluding VAT.
PRICE	£1,168 ($1,680)	£1,488 ($2,140)	£1488 ($2,140)

Once a gimmick, the hybrid 2-in-1 has rapidly become the default design for a high-end portable laptop—or rather, Microsoft's take on the hybrid 2-in-1 has become the default design for a high-end portable laptop. For all its faults, the Surface Pro is a fine piece of hardware design, and everyone from the likes of HP to Lenovo has come up with its own iterative take on the concept. Dell has had a few attempts at it, too, with varying degrees of success. (What was it thinking with the wacky, horizontally spinning screen of the old XPS 12?)
The Latitude 12 7000 (actual model number 7275) is decidedly less out there, and not just because it hails from Dell's stuffy business PC range. It's very much a take on the Surface design, albeit with a different—though not necessarily better—case and keyboard, as well as an austere yet attractive soft-touch body. Dell's design chops have progressed leaps and bounds over the past couple of years, and the Latitude 12 7000 is no exception; business types and clean-cut consumers will have no problem whipping one out in a meeting or at a local Starbucks.
And yet despite some nice touches, it's hard to recommend the Latitude 12.

I’m all business, baby

Like the Surface, the Latitude 12 uses a keyboard case with a kickstand on the back rather than being a laptop with a 360-degree hinge. However, the screen doesn't actually form part of the structure of the thing—lift it off and the kickstand stays behind. This design helps keep the tablet sleek, but it does mean that if you don't have the kickstand-keyboard case with you, there's no way of propping the tablet up without resorting to some MacGyver-like hacking.
But boy is this thing sleek. The Latitude 12 is an ultra-skinny tablet closer in dimensions to an iPad Pro 12 than your typical "business tablet." It’s about as far removed from a Panasonic Toughpad as you can get. The highlight of the tablet is just how much of the front of it is taken up by the display. There's only about a centimeter of blank space to the left and right, giving you the sense that Dell has squeezed in as large a screen as it can. The bezel at the top and bottom of the screen is bigger, but if Dell tried to shrink it down, there would be no room for the decently sized trackpad that is part of the case—and a hybrid without a good trackpad makes Windows 10 a nightmare to use for proper work like spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.
There are some smart design decisions in the Latitude 12, then, but it doesn’t have the glamour of the Surface. Its design is relatively plain. Unlike, say, the Lenovo Yoga 900 with its unbelievably blingy watch-inspired hinge, there are no flashy parts on show with the Dell. Though, as someone who finds the Yoga 900 a bit too showy for its own good, I'm fine with that. The tablet's frame is covered in a plain black soft-touch finish, while the case is covered almost entirely by what looks like gray tweed fabric.

Andrew Williams

Yes, Dell has dressed this thing up in a suit

Unfortunately, the soft-touch finish of the Latitude 12 makes it feel like plastic, but it's actually made from tough magnesium, the same stuff Lenovo uses to make Thinkpads. This material makes the tablet alone weigh a hefty 706g; if you add a keyboard to the mix, the device is a bit too heavy to hold comfortably in one hand for more than a minute or so. Plug in the keyboard and the hinge holds the screen much farther back than your average laptop, which is a nice touch. The hinge has a free-moving mechanism that has enough strength to hold up the screen at an airline-friendly 135 degrees. The Samsung Galaxy TabPro S, Microsoft Surface Book, and Dell Latitude 12 all try to offer a picture of what the laptops of the future might look like. In doing so, some convenience is lost. With the keyboard attached, the Dell Latitude 12 is significantly thicker than a MacBook Pro, but it manages to lack any regular-size USB ports. USB Type-C might be the future, but the vast majority of devices still use the old standard, meaning you'll need an adaptor to connect them. Thankfully there are two Thunderbolt 3 ports, which support 40Gb/s Thunderbolt devices, 10Gbps USB 3.1, and 4K displays up to 60Hz. They're also used to charge the tablet. Plus, Dell bundles a full-size USB adapter in the box.
Really, though, Dell wants you to fork out for one of its desktop docks. The Dell WD15 adds a whole mess of video and USB connectors that make using the Latitude 12 at a desk a single-cable affair, but it costs a hefty £250. It's definitely one for the corporate card. There's also no full-size SD slot on the Latitude, just microSD. I edit photos using an array of SD cards daily, and even after accepting the downgrade to using microSD exclusively, the idea of having to deal with the fiddly little plastic flap every day is not appealing.

A keyboard that works for work

Where the Latitude 12 claws back its legitimacy as a work device is with the keyboard—it's far sturdier than most. The brightly backlit keyboard features full-size, well-spaced keys with an action just as deep as you'll find on a regular slim laptop. The keyboard plate is also unusually stiff for something so slim, again telling your fingers that this is a proper keyboard, not some sort of flimsy tablet accessory. The connection between keyboard and screen is "wired," using a set of 12 metal contacts rather than Bluetooth, making it quick and reliable.
Typing on the Latitude 12 feels like typing on a laptop, the main caveat being that the sound it creates changes a lot depending on the surface used. You'll want to use something sturdy to avoid the vibrations traveling through the base, which makes typing sound like you're tapping on some tiny toneless bongos. It's the trackpad that stands out the most, though. The soft, frosted glass surface feels very smooth, and the mechanical buttons are suitably clicky.
There is one issue: it's too easy to accidentally press the right mouse button until your fingers are used to the trackpad's oddly wide dimensions. The left and right buttons are split across the touchpad evenly, in a traditional fashion, but some recent Ultrabooks feature the far more sensible option of relegating the right-click to a bottom-right space on the pad.

A stylus holder—but no stylus in the box. Damn you, Dell!

To the right of the keyboard sits a little elastic loop designed to hold the Dell Active stylus. Despite the Latitude 12's high price, the stylus isn't included: you have to pay £41 for it. Dell has been a little frugal on what tech actually powers the stylus (beyond a AAA battery), but the company's recent stylus tablets have used a Synaptics interface rather than the more popular nTrig and Wacom ones. I've not had a chance to try out the stylus, but it is unlikely to feel quite as good as the iPad Pro 12's. Dell has done a seriously good job with the Latitude 12's display. There are two versions available, a 3860×2160 (UHD) display and a conventional 1080p screen. We tested the UHD model, and the color performance of the panel is truly remarkable. It covers not only 100 percent of sRGB, but 96 percent of Adobe RGB (98.9 percent by volume) and 86.4 percent of the currently trendy DCI P3 cinema standard (101.7 percent by volume).
This sort of color performance is what you might expect from an OLED, not an LCD. As the gamut extends way beyond sRGB, with 143.6 percent by volume, certain tones are going to look rather hot, though. Intense reds in particular can appear seriously lively. Unless you’re an sRGB purist, there’s a lot to like. Contrast is solid at 1188:1, and while the screen is reflective, a maximum brightness of 412 cd/m² means it can cope with being used outdoors fairly well. There’s some loss of brightness at an angle, but it's a non-issue given how bright the screen can go.

Don’t ask about the battery life

The definition of what makes a high-end laptop has changed. Great build and display quality have trumped raw power, with an efficient processor being more useful than a powerful one for most people. As such, the Latitude 12 is powered by Intel's Core M series of mobile chips—as used in the MacBook, amongst others—rather than a full-fat i5 or i7.
My particular review unit features a top-of-the-range 1.2GHz (3.1GHz Turbo) Intel Core m7-6Y75 CPU—the latest Skylake version of the chip—paired with 8GB of RAM. The slightly cheaper versions of the Latitude 12 use Core m5 chips. Both are dual-core chips with hyperthreading and 4MB of cache.

For most tests the difference boils down to clock speed. The Core m7 has a higher clock speed and a higher boost clock, as well as a faster-clocked GPU, although both use an Intel HD 515 variant. It also offers TSX-NI support, designed to increase performance in business apps. Some benchmarks suggest these Core M chips are rather weak, but for general productivity tasks they compare reasonably well with a dual-core Core i5. It's only really when gaming that their low power, high-efficiency design starts to fail.
In the GFXBench and 3DMark tests, the Latitude 12 is significantly outperformed by a Core i5 Surface Pro 4. For a more anecdotal take on the Latitude 12's gaming performance, I booted-up Skyrim. Despite being old enough to collect a pension in gaming terms, it runs like a dog at 1080p at high settings. At the same resolution but with the visuals dropped down to low, it's just about playable, but still a way off the smoothness you'd expect.
Obviously, the Latitude 12 isn't aimed at gamers, but the Core M does have other limitations. Despite having 8GB of RAM, it's hard to recommend a Core M device to creative types that need something that can handle large files in Photoshop—and forget about it for video editing. The Core M can make a laptop feel fast in everyday tasks, but it has its limits.
The Latitude 12's SSD isn't among the fastest seen recently either, with max read speeds of around 550MB/s, rather than the 1300MB/s of some of the latest, greatest PCIe models.

Unfortunately for Dell, despite using a power-sipping processor, the Latitude 12 has poor battery life. It lasted just over three hours in Ars' standard Web browsing test and just over two in the WebGL test. This is a flat-out terrible result for this class of device, nixing the benefits of its portable hybrid design. It's tempting to blame Dell's quest for thinness as the root cause of the Latitude 12's poor battery life—but the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S uses similar hardware and a comparable CPU, yet manages to last more than double the time.
A final note for the misguided person thinking about using the Latitude 12 as a holiday camera: while its 8-megapixel and 5-megapixel cameras are fine, the ones on a typical smartphone are far better.

Conclusions

Poor battery life is a major issue in what is otherwise a desirable, if extremely expensive hybrid. The Dell Latitude 12 has a great keyboard, giving it a true laptop-like feel, and it can switch into a fairly accessible tablet in seconds—or at least as accessible as something with a 12-inch screen can be. The lack of a full-size USB connection, particularly in a business-orientated laptop, is another sore point. The Latitude 12 is a niche device, then, one that a style-conscious exec may want to check out. For everyone else there are far better (and cheaper) options out there.

The Good

High-quality keyboard and trackpad
Sharp, colour-rich screen
Good everyday performance

The Bad

Terrible battery life
Expensive
Low power-to-price ratio

The Ugly

A stylus loop with no included stylus?

Andrew Williams is a freelance technology journalist who has been writing in the field for 10 years. He covers just about all areas of consumer tech, with a particular interest in how it all works underneath the layers of glossy finish and impressive-sounding jargon. He can be found on Twitter at @wwwdotandrew.

Labels

Technology