30 years of Dell Latitude – from impressive battery-powered productivity to AI PCs
For decades, companies in the US and around the world have relied on purpose-built business laptops that have dramatically increased productivity.
One such model that has been a staple for thirty years is the Dell Latitude family of business laptops – starting with the Dell Latitude XP in 1994. Since then, Dell has continued to produce a range of machines that are widely regarded as one of the best business laptopsbut it’s worth taking a look back at the Latitude – the machine that started it all.
Today, Dell has developed a plethora of functional and productivity-enhancing devices, including the Latitude 7490, Latitude 7230 Rugged ExtremeAnd Latitude 9440. These machines usually contain the latest and most powerful components; the latter, for example, can be equipped with 13th generation Intel Core processors and up to 64 GB of RAM and up to 2 TB of storage.
Dell’s blast from the past
But the first machine, the Latitude XP, only had a 9.5-inch color screen, 8 MB of RAM, a 340 MB hard drive, and an IntelDX4 75 MHz processor. It was also equipped with a lithium-ion battery, one of the first machines to be equipped with it, and weighed a fairly heavy 5.9 pounds (2.68 kg).
In contrast, today’s best ultraportables can sometimes weigh less than 1kg. This device was available for “just” $3,399, which equates to just under $7,100 (£5,500) today.
Some “cool facts” according to an advertisement from that time was that it was the most tested product in Dell’s history at the time and that the publication PC Computing heralded it as “the fastest, longest-lasting 486 notebook” it tested. It had “enough (a better life) to get you from New York to London (and back if you make the Concorde) without any problems.”
The LA timesRichard O’Reilly was also impressed by the fact that the Dell Latitude did not reduce the device’s screen brightness when using battery power, unlike many other similar machines at the time, including the ‘ThinkPad color computer’.
The 1994 model saw an improvement a year later with the XPi, which had an Intel Pentium processor, 40 MB of RAM, and a NeoMagic NM2070 graphics card with 1 MB of memory. The screen size also got a boost to 10.5 inches. Of course, technology has improved tremendously since then and businesses can take advantage of stunning displays and new AI features like the Latitude 7350 Detachable and Latitude 9450.