Dell Latitude E7240 review

We’re not enamoured by the E7240’s keyboard, either. The keys provided a good level of tactile feedback, but the keyboard was a little too cramped for our hands. Fortunately, the touchpad was much easier to use and we appreciated its separate buttons. It took a while before we could swipe the touchpad to switch between windows proficiently, but we could perform multitouch gestures and display the Charms bar just fine. If you’d rather not use Windows 8 Pro, you can buy an identically specified E7240 with Windows 7 Professional preinstalled.

The E7240’s battery life was good, but not outstanding. It lasted 8 hours and 7 minutes in our light use test with the screen set to half brightness, so you should get a full day’s work out of it. However, it still can’t match the near nine and a half hours of the HP Elitebook 840 G1.

The E7240 also has a wide variety of wireless features, including Intel’s Wi-Di wireless display technology, which lets you view everything on your laptop screen on another Wi-Di enabled projector or TV. The E7240 is also compatible with traditional E-Family docking stations and any peripherals with WiGig docking technology. Higher-end models have a SIM card slot so that you can get online when you’re out and about, but not the model reviewed here.

The lack of a SIM card slot isn’t surprising given the price of this particular model, but we would have liked greater consistency with the security features installed on models within this range. For instance, a fingerprint reader and smart card reader is only available on the most expensive model, and Intel’s vPro technology, an additional set of security features built into the processor, is only supported by the Core i5-4300U and Core i7-4600U specifications. Only a trusted platform module (TPM) is available for this particular model.

The Dell Latitude E7240 is an attractive business ultraportable, but underneath its good looks is a fairly average laptop. At £947 (£789 ex VAT), it’s also very expensive and not nearly as good value as the similarly priced Core i5 version of the HP Elitebook 840 G1.