Latitude 7480

Looking at the configuration options for new 7480s suggests that there's no clear distinguishing feature.

I don't know if it's been fixed on the Kaby Lake platform but Skylake Thunderbolt (as on my Precision 5510 and Latitude 7370) has what I consider to be a serious bug: Plugging any device into a USB-C port wakes up the Thunderbolt controller which uses 2.5 to 3W and causes the 5510's fans to speed up. It also means that using a USB-C device when running on battery can significantly reduce the battery run time. A non-Thunderbolt-enabled notebook gives you USB-C without these TB glitches. There's also the question of how many PCIe lanes have been allocated to the Thunderbolt port. This info isn't easy to find.

John

 

Thanks for that detailed update John.

I suppose it's better to avoid thunderbolt on this notebook, unless you have a clear need for it.

As an aside, thank you for all your detailed posts, they really add value and information that reviews typically wouldn't cover.

 

Hello ,
I have dell 7450 FHD,

is the dell 7480 really an upgrade, and in what points ?
is it worthy to buy it or this is more or less the same ?

Thanks

 

Is the 4G wireless card i had in 7450 compitable with 7480???

(Quallcomm Gobi 4G LTE)

 

It's definitely not the same. I start by reading the owner's manual.
The 7480 is a little thinner and lighter than the E7450 and one of the battery options has higher capacity (but may not co-exist with the optional smart card reader). It also has QHD display and touch options, a Thunderbolt option while the SSD slot supports the faster PCIe/NVMe SSDs as well as SATA. However, you lose the Dell docking port on the bottom and the battery is internal. Read the notebookcheck 7480 review if you haven't done so already.

Consider whether any of the new features in the 7480 are of sufficient benefit to justify the upgrade. For me, perhaps the most attractive feature of the 7480 is the potential for all-day light usage with the 60Whr battery and the more efficient newer Intel hardware. The improvement in CPU speed is less likely to be noticeable.

It should be. From my understanding of the manuals both the notebooks have an M.2 slot for the WWAN. Probably the main reason for needing a newer 4G card is to get support for a greater number of the LTE frequency bands but if you are getting 4G everywhere you go at the moment with the provider you use then that potential issue is irrelevant. Of greater uncertainty is whether Dell put the WWAN antennae into all the 7480 production irrespective of whether the WWAN card is ordered.

John

 

thanks for the reply John,

I have read the reviews .
I found a good price for a new dell 7480 , but with the I7-6600U processor (I initially thought 7480 comes only with kabylake) instead of the i5-7300 ( I was searching ).
Should I go for it ? Or Is it i5-7300 that is newer generation better ?

 

You can compare the performance at notebookcheck. The newer CPU is slightly faster in multi-threaded applications. It might also be slightly morepower efficient as Intel have dropped the operating voltages a little (but you can achieve something similar by undervolting using ThrottleStop).

If the price difference is significant then I would opt for the Skylake CPU. Money saved there can be spent on more RAM or higher capacity SSD which are likely to be more beneficial to overall performance than a small difference in the raw CPU speed.

John

 

Dell announced new Dell xps 13 and new inspiron with 8th Generation Intel processor.

When to expect the new dell latitude?!

 

I expect no basic change to the design or chassis, most likely just the newest CPU / chipset. However, there is some excitement around Intel now offering some 15W quad core CPUs as part of the new line-up. If you are planning to load the CPU with multi-threaded work then 4 cores running 8 threads is faster and more power-efficient than 2 cores running 4 threads and these new CPUs offer higher maximum clock speeds when running one or two threads.

However, I've always reckoned that a CPU speed difference of less than around 25% isn't noticeable in everyday usage so my comment made above about making sure that the RAM and storage are not bottlenecks still applies. However, the performance jump from SATA to PCIe / NVMe SSDs may not be very obvious in everyday workflows - I replaced the stock 256GB NVMe SSD that came in my Precision 5510 and put in a 1TB SATA SSD and didn't notice any speed difference.

John