Dell has launched a new video campaign showing the apparent durable superiority of its Latitude 7000 Series Ultrabooks. The company seems to have been irked by Lenovo's claims that its new X1 Carbon Ultrabook is "virtually indestructible" and wants to assure customers that the Latitude 7000 series really is the world's most durable Ultrabook. In other rugged Dell news it has launched a 'Durable by Design' Latitude 13 Education Series laptop for schools.
The Dell laptops could cope with more than double the Lenovo's breaking force
In Dell's new laptop testing comparison video you can see the hinges of both its Latitude 7000 Ultrabook and the Lenovo X1 Carbon bending backwards in a very painful looking manner. While we see a disembodied pair of hands doing the testing in the video Dell assures us that the results and actual testing was fairly "conducted using a force displacement machine under lab conditions".
Needless to say the Lenovo X1 Carbon fares pretty badly in this Dell published video. The screen hinge mechanism fails catastrophically turning the system into an ugly mess. Dell says "The modern professional deserves more." Next up we see the Dell Latitude E7240 which is built and tested to 16 MIL-STD-810G standards. It survives the screen hinge assault without any sweat… Looking at the lab result figures we find that the Lenovo broke under 5.367lbs of force while the Dell Latitude E7240 and E7440 withstood more than two times that force without breaking.
It will be interesting to see if Lenovo responds to Dell's video.
Dell Latitude 13 Education Series laptop
Dell has also just released a new durable laptop aimed at the education market. The new Dell Latitude 13 Education Series laptop is "built for school". This 13.3-inch laptop comes with a choice of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 pre-installed and is available now at a special launch price of £349 +VAT and shipping.
There are various options available which will hike that price up; you can specify either an Intel i3 (4010U) or Celeron dual-core (2957U) and memory up to 4GB of DDR3 1600MHz. The 13.3-inch screen can be specified as touch enabled and Gorilla Glass covered. You have an option for a 500GB SATA HDD or 500GB SSHD. Also it offers impressive battery life of up to 13 hours with the longer-lasting battery option.
However the Dell Latitude 13 Education Series laptop is notable for its durability. Like the Ultrabook in the video above this education targeted laptop is built with "military-standard testing". The clamshell "opens 180 degrees to reduce hinge stress when carried by students in unconventional ways". It also features rubberised LCD and base trims for superior drop protection and a fully-sealed keyboard and touchpad for the "industry’s best spill protection". If you choose the touch-screen it also employs Corning's Gorilla Glass, as mentioned above.
