DELL Dell-E6440 8gb Ram 500gb Hard Disk Corei5 -backlit Keyboard

Dell's Latitude 6-series is neither very thin nor especially light and does not win any design awards either. But it does not have to – business devices have other priorities: Ports, stability, simple handling, performance and restrained design are much more important for business customers. Dell built up quite a reputation in this area over the last couple of years and obviously wants to continue the success of the Latitude series.

The 6-series within the Latitude range is in the upper range in terms of price and performance. We review the Latitude E6440 with a 14-inch display, Core i5-4300M processor and AMD Radeon HD 8690M graphics card. These components indicate a fairly powerful system and Dell promises first class security features with DDP Protected Workspace, TPM module, Dell Control Vault and much more. We already reviewed the 15-inch sibling, the E6540 (i7-4800MQ, HD 8790M). 

Other manufacturers obviously also know that it is quite lucrative to supply companies with laptops for hundreds or thousands of employees, so the competition is quite big: HP often has an advantage thanks to its server business and wants to convince companies with its EliteBook 840, for example. Lenovo offers the ThinkPad T440 and Toshiba has its Tecra R940 for demanding customers. We only reviewed the latter premium rival.

Less expensive and equipped with a 15-inch display is HP's ProBook 650. ThinkPads are already familiar in office environments and Lenovo's ThinkPad L440 is a convincing package. Toshiba's Tecra A50 has very similar hardware equipment to our review unit, but costs around 1,300 Euros (~$1780). There are also some companies nowadays with an Apple infrastructure, so the MacBook Pro 13 is an alternative as well.

Dell uses a combination of magnesium, aluminum and plastic in terms of materials. The cover is made of anodized aluminum, the bottom is powder-coated and the palm rest is rubberized. Everything feels very sturdy, even though the Latitude E6440 is not very light at 2.1 kilograms (~4.6 pounds).

The stability of the base unit does not leave anything to be desired: Nothing can be pushed in or twisted; only the area of the right palm rest can be slightly pushed in with a lot of force. The sturdy impression is supported by the solid locking mechanism that keeps the lid in position. The steel hinges appear to be very solid and keep the display well in position almost without any bouncing, but you can still open the lid with one hand – great.

You can somewhat easily twist the cover despite the aluminum lid and produce white veils on the picture. The cover is very pressure resistant, but force on the inner frame creates visible picture interferences.

All in all Dell's Latitude E6440 is visually restrained, has convenient haptics and a good chassis, which is also very sturdy. If you prefer the weight and dimensions of an ultrabook, you should have a look at the Latitude 7-series. The 14-inch version is one centimeter thinner and 500 grams lighter (~1.1 pounds).