Review: Dell's Latitude 7390 2-in-1 Is Our Favorite Latitude Yet

We've enjoyed using Dell's Latitude laptops in the past, with their strong mix of performance, security and portability. But it always felt like there was a missing piece compared to other leading business laptops, such as Lenovo's ThinkPad line. We're talking about the touchpad, which in the case of many ThinkPads is Microsoft's excellent Precision Touchpad.

At last, Dell, too, is adopting the Precision Touchpad with its Latitude laptops for 2018--and we've loved it on our tryout model of the Latitude 7390 2-in-1.

[Related: Review: HP's EliteBook x360 1020 Redefines The Business Laptop As You Know It]

Dell is taking what we've appreciated most about past Latitude models and adding in a great touchpad and handy 2-in-1 convertibility – ultimately making the Latitude 7390 2-in-1 our favorite Latitude yet in the CRN Test Center.

Design, Performance, Portability

The laptop sports an appealing black color scheme, a bright 13.3-inch FHD touch display and a backlit keyboard featuring comfortable, deep keys.

Other highlights include terrific performance from an eighth-gen Core i7 processor and some business-friendly security features, among them Windows Hello facial recognition log-in, which worked great in our tryout.

The Latitude 7390 2-in-1 is also highly portable, weighing just above three pounds and measuring 0.7 of an inch thick.

On battery life, the laptop got a respectable eight hours of heavy usage on a charge, with the brightness set at 75 percent.

Additionally, business users will like the generous port selection, with two USB-A, two USB-C, HDMI and two card slots (SIM and SD).

Smooth Touchpad

Regarding differences from past Latitudes, we think the adoption of the Precision Touchpad is one of the improvements business users will appreciate most.

What we love about the Precision Touchpad is that it works perfectly right out of the box. You don’t have to fiddle with the touchpad settings, and there’s almost no latency when using it. Those were major issues with the previous Latitude touchpads.

The touchpad in the Latitude 7390 2-in-1 is smooth and responsive, even when doing things like two-finger scrolling through web pages or PDFs. Ultimately, the new touchpad means you can move more quickly through your work.

Pricing may be an issue for some buyers, with the Latitude 7390 2-in-1 priced at about $2,100 for the model as configured for our tryout (with 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage). That puts it in the same ballpark as some sleeker 2-in-1 business laptops, such as HP's EliteBook x360--though the Latitude 7390 2-in-1 is available at lower prices with slower processors and less RAM and storage.

Regardless, the price tag doesn't strike us as too unreasonable given how much Dell's Latitude 7390 2-in-1 gets right. Businesses and workers alike should appreciate all the pieces this laptop brings together for a highly productive, and enjoyable, user experience.