Dell Latitude 7490

Thank for sharing. Do you recall the source confirming the BOE panel having PWM?

I myself had posted about the BOE panel on a 7480 elsewhere, curious to know who else has seen this.

 

I just received my second 7490 from the dell outlet and both units have had the same exact issue with the keyboard described by mvalpreda. Some keys on the right hand side of the keyboard are sticky and sound different (when pressed at a certain angle). It's one of the those things that you might not notice unless you're particular about the keyboard. I'm wondering if all 7490's have this issue or if it's something with the current batch at the Dell Outlet. @mvalpreda is your replacement better?

I'm currently debating whether to live with the less than perfect keyboard, order yet another 7490, or try buying another laptop. It doesn't help that the laptop I just received has minor, but definitely noticeable backlight bleed.

Aside from these problems, I really like the laptop. The main draw of the 7490 for me is that it accommodates up to 32gb RAM. Based on my research, the 7490 is the lightest laptop that can go up to 32gb. The X1 Carbon looks great, but is capped at 16gb.

I should also mention that the first unit I ordered had an i5 chip and this latest unit has an i7 chip. Based on my informal testing, there's really very little benefit to the i7 chip (as others have found). If you fully utilize just 2 of 8 threads (using Prime95), the i7 quickly throttles below the top clock speed of the i5. The i7 can't even sustain it's top clock speed when running 1 thread (though it is able to maintain a rate slightly higher than the top rate of the i5). So the i7 really is only superior to the i5 for short bursts. (The i7 has a larger cache, but I don't have a good sense of whether this difference is meaningful.)

 

Yeah, the "max all core turbo" is unrealistic in any 15W TDP laptop. I'd guess it needs around 40W power draw in reality (to sustain max turbo speed), given clocks and voltage vs other 14nm+ (not 14nm++, since KabyLakeR is 14nm+) mobile quads.

 

@Lee La

Do you have the SLP panel?

around 42w CPU only, igpu add around 15-20w


it's realistic if the laptop was designed properly, which most of them isn't

 

Look here for a list, most BOE's have PWM.
http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-pwm-ranking-rated-by-negative-impact-on-eyesight/

Seems to be just a standard power IPS, but i'm happy with it.

 

But did you buy it with SLP panel?

 

Nope. My needs favour AC over battery life so it wasn't an important option for me.

 

So, I bought a 7490 a month ago, returned it because of the fingerprint reader.

Bought another one on the outlet last week, hoping it was just my reader that was bad. Got the same laptop back! Still broken.

What alternatives to the 7490 have people looked into? I love the computer, but the FPR's crappy ability to read my finger has me not wanting another device with the ControlVault FPR ever again. (I had an IR camera, but I can't change my face as easily as what finger I use when I need admin privileges)

 

They all suck in my experience. Never worked right.

 

The Lenovo fingerprint readers in the Yoga 260 and P50 have been great. The Inspiron 7577's was as fast as my Nexus 6P. They've been great, and I had a good read 95% of the time. The 7490 was closer to 15%