New Latitude 5470

Have ordered one couple of days back, expected delivery is 15th Jan. does this Internal Dual Pointing Backlit Keyboard will have a trackpoint by default? there is no way im able to ascertain that while ordering. Some of the laptop images in their site shows keyboard with trackpoint and others nothing

 

My understanding is that "dual pointing" means having both a touchpad and a pointing stick.

John

 

Only read the post quoted below just now..

Most Linux users are forced to use a dGPU when present (Optimus is not supported out-of-the-box in any of the major distros).

For one, I'm not sure I buy that. According to a review on Notebookcheck, the iGPU E7450 runs without any active cooling under light load. In those cases, the dGPU model couldn't logically be quieter.

For another, I don't think noise and temperature of dGPU vs. iGPU system is something you can easily extrapolate from one laptop model to another.

 

It's nothing to do with temperature, which is largely controlled by the fan rules written into the BIOS. Dell had to provide a better cooling system on the DGPU version of the E7450 and a key component of this is a fan which looks like it was designed to move air rather than being a set of crude blades on a wheel. Compare the internal photos in my reviews of (i) my E7450 and (ii) my previous E7440. I should add that a friend bought the iGPU version of the E7450 and it has the same fan (and annoying noise) as the E7440. However, I accept your point about either fan being quiet under light load, but once the CPU load increases (25% is sufficient) then the difference in fan noise is very evident and the dGPU version is quieter even under full CPU + GPU load. Sensibly, Dell would use the better fan on all products, but this would add a few dollars to the cost and people working in noisy offices wouldn't notice the difference.

I also accept that observations for the E7450 may not be applicable to the E5470, but it is something I would watch out for.

John

 

These are AMD, not Nvidia -- but with Optimus/Nvidia, Dell's current implementation wires the iGPU to all the outputs. Without Optimus (via Bumblebee), you are iGPU only, and better off for it... (at least that's been my experience on the M3800 and on the Lenovo W530)

Given the anemic dGPU to begin with I'm hoping for them to rev these with the Iris Pro CPUs when those drop. We'll see.

My wife's E7440 basically never turns the fan on under her use. OTOH, 15W dual-core ULV CPU vs. 45W in the E5x70s...

(One thing I'd love to see Dell do, which they probably won't, is put a quad core into an E74x0 chassis - if they can't adequately cool the 45W CPUs in a chassis that size (although Sony did with the older Vaio Z) they could consider the i7-6822EQ ( http://ark.intel.com/products/90615/Intel-Core-i7-6822EQ-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-2_80-GHz -- a 25W lower-clocked quad-core.)

 

Do you guys think that there might be a chance to have Iris graphics in either E5470 or E7470 ? or do you not see this chance because every Iris cpu is missing vpro ? (just curios)

 

Silly question but why did dell skip the "60" series and go straight to "70" model number indicator. Does not matter but it just seems odd and I am wondering if there is a simple explanation.

It is highly unlikely that dell would use the iris version of the cpu. They have the dgpu model and are relying on that for high gpu users. I could be wrong, but I'd still be shocked.

 

Unlikely, but not impossible; I'm not sure if there's been any formal announcement beyond "early this year" about when the Iris Pro Skylake-H chips are even supposed to be available.

 

So I got mine today. It's a nice machine. I very much like the design and the build quality.

However, I'm returning it. Prior to purchasing, Dell Chat confirmed that the laptop would work with an M.2 SSD and a 2.5 drive at the same time. That information was wrong.

The M.2 occupies part of the space for the HDD cage. So you'd have to remove the M.2 to make space for a 2.5" SSD. That doesn't work for me.

 

Thanks for this info on the SSD-slots! I was waiting for an answer from Dell on this question...

I suppose you haven't used the laptop long enough to estimate the battery life time, but could you tell us the weight of the laptop if you have the 64Wh-battery with non-touch FHD-display? (The weight on the website is for the smaller battery...)
If you have the version with dedicated GPU (R7 M360), do you know if you can easily (not through the BIOS) disable it when 'on the go', to increase the battery life by using only the iGPU (HD 530)?

I would further like to ask you all some advice.
I'm looking for a new laptop and am not planning on playing computer games. It'll be mainly used for very large Excel-files, number-crunching, engineering simulations, scientific/numerical programming, but also with 3D CAD (architectural) programs like Revit, Autocad 3D etc., often connected to 2 standard FHD screens (not quad-HD). Also regularly on the move to meetings etc.
Thus I'm planning on buying th e5470 (14", still OK weight and very good CPU (better than ix-xxxU-series)), but I cannot decide between the i7 (quad+HT) and the i5 (quad without HT) with R7 M360-GPU.
Would that basic dedicated R7 M360 with 2GB RAM be a significant advantage compared to the iGPU (HD 530) for 3D CAD (don't need to render HQ video's etc., but for modelling, also on larger models)?