Some of the look and most of the feel of Windows 7 is there in Windows 8’s “desktop” mode, but the touchscreen isn’t as well defined as we would have liked. As such, without a mouse or stylus, your touches might not always get through to the keeper, and you may have to press locations more often than once.
One of the nicer features that Dell has included is a secondary power port which takes its charge from microUSB.
We have one thing to say about this: FINALLY.
With microUSB long being considered a standard in the world of mobile phone chargers, it’s nice to see a company step up and include microUSB as a charging method alongside a proprietary port.
We’re not sure why both are included, and suspect the Dell AC port probably provides more power and thus charges more quickly, but we are grateful that a manufacturer decided to include a port that almost everyone has access to.
Adding to the nicety of the microUSB charging is the battery, which has two lovely features.
The first of these is the performance, which in our tests boasted around ten hours of use with WiFi switched on and working. Given that this is a flat two cell battery, that’s not bad at all, especially since Dell also offers a larger four cell variant for an optional purchase.
Dell’s other nifty feature is that the battery in the Latitude 10 is replaceable, with a switch on the rear of the tablet triggering a release mechanism to let you take the battery out.
So even if you manage to chew through the life offered, you can carry an extra battery, pop it in, and away you go.
While the performance of Latitude 10 is perfectly acceptable, we don’t suggest it for lots of writing.
At one point, we started writing our review on this tablet, and while that’s a fairly normal practice for us (writing reviews on said products with a keyboard), it became clear that the on-screen keyboard and performance were fine, but our patience was not.
It’s like the iPad: if you consider yourself a proficient typist and are faster than what the touchscreen can accommodate for, you’ll have plenty of typos littered through your documents as you wait for Windows to catch up to you.
This could stem from Dell’s decision to make the tablet support only five points of touch compared to the usual ten, but we can’t be certain. Sufficed to say, if this is your primary machine, plug in a keyboard if you plan on doing a lot of writing.
Dell’s design probably won’t win any awards for being sexy, as it’s not. While you can argue that looks are subjective, the basic black rubberised look is pretty ordinary, and lacks the feel of brushed metal or a premium alloy, materials we’re seeing on other devices with similar specs.
The price also leaves something to be desired. That something is probably “spare money,” because at $899, this isn’t the cheapest tablet around.
Sure, it’s a decent performer, but it’s no different from the Atom powered tablets we’re seeing from other companies, and it’s certainly not better looking than other tablets which also come in at prices we’d argue are better.
Conclusion
Dell’s 10 inch Latitude manages to prove itself as a decent tablet for anyone after a Windows 8 experience that has plenty of life on the go.
Our one major problem with this tablet, though, is the price, and with the model we looked at, a price tag of a hundred shy from a grand without a keyboard dock makes it a hard argument to win, which is a shame because Dell has made a decent little tablet here.
