For many decades, businesses in the US and around the world have relied on purpose-built business laptops that have greatly increased productivity.
One such model that has been a staple for 30 years is the Dell Latitude family of business laptops, starting with the Dell Latitude XP in 1994. Since then, Dell has continued to make a series of machines widely considered among the best business laptopsBut it's worth looking back at Latitude, the machine that started it all.
Today, Dell has designed a host of functional and productivity-enabling devices, including the Latitude 7490, Latitude 7230 Extreme Ruggedand Latitude 9440. These machines usually incorporate the most modern and 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, featured only a 9.5-inch color screen, 8 MB of RAM, a 340 MB hard drive, and a 75 MHz IntelDX4 processor. It was also equipped with a lithium-ion battery. , one of the first machines of its type to be equipped with one, and weighed 5.9 pounds (2.68 kg).
By contrast, today's best ultraportables can sometimes weigh less than 2.2 pounds (1 kg). This device was available for “just” $3,399, equivalent to just under $7,100 (£5,500) today.
Some “interesting facts” according to an advertisement at the time was that it was the most tested product in Dell's history, at the time and the publication PC Computing advertised it as “the fastest and most durable 486 laptop” it had ever tested. I had enough [bettery life] to get you from New York to London (and back again if you take the Concorde) without a hitch.
Richard O'Reilly of the LA Times was also impressed with the fact that the Dell Latitude did not reduce the brightness of the device's screen when it was using its battery, unlike many other similar machines of the era, including the 'computer in color ThinkPad'.
The 1994 model saw an upgrade a year later with the XPi, which included an Intel Pentium processor, 40 MB of RAM, and a NeoMagic NM2070 graphics card with 1 MB of memory. The screen size has also increased to 10.5 inches. Since then, of course, the technology has improved tremendously and businesses can take advantage of stunning displays and new AI features like the Latitude 7350 Detachable and Latitude 9450.
