Dell 14" Latitude 5420 Laptop

Core i5 to the max. We are testing Dell's mainstream business laptop. Although the 14-inch device appears to include everything you can hope for, the clickpad is huge downgrade.

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  great overall CPU performance, robust plastic chassis, long battery runtimes, fast microSD card reader, large selection of ports and business features, great expandability/upgradeability, low surface temperatures, quiet operation possible, Dell energy/emission tools

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  no AMD Ryzen options, very weak iGPU performance, poor mouse replacement

Here at Techaeris, we usually get business, consumer, and gaming oriented desktops to review. The majority of those are fairly slim and sleek and meant for indoor or portable use.

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  Very rugged design, Various customizable options, Decent performance as tested, Easily swappable NVMe SSD, Dual removable batteries, Decent battery life, Additional software/hardware security options, Crisp, clear, relatively loud sound

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  Base display not great outside, More expensive than comparable non-rugged laptops

For a mainstream PC maker, Dell has plenty of presence in the rugged laptop market, including several 14-inch models. One of these is the Latitude 5420 Rugged . It may not be as bulletproof as laptops in Dell's 'Rugged Extreme' series, but it can still take a few knocks.

Tough but thin. Rugged Notebooks aren't known for their svelte profiles, but the Dell Latitude 5420 Rugged tries to trim things down while maintaining the durability of the Latitude Rugged line.

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  portable for a rugged laptop, excellent keyboard, extremely bright display, hot-swappable batteries, long battery life, easy to swap hard drive, good repairability/maintenance options, Windows Hello w/ face recognition and fingerprint scanner, wide selection of ports

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  very expensive, heavy and thick, average touchpad, grainy matte screen, below-average performance, aesthetically ugly

I used this through my time at school. It worked pretty well. It held up all four years, despite the normal wear and tear any student puts on a computer. I noticed that the key caps were really flimsy and popped off VERY easily.

Excellent Ultrabook and a great deal from Dell Outlet. User very happy with this, light weight, easy to use, i7 processor 8Gb ram runs Windows apps with ease. Great purchase for our non-profit

Use these for work computers, nice for work, but not really for anything else like play, which for work is good haha. Only downside is the Dell bloatware.

Has to be the most Rock Solid Laptop ever made. I rate it a 10+ in every area. I use a 5420 and a 6520 and all I can say is Dell has drawn a line in the sand for its competition!

We now have three of these and they work GREAT. No one has complained about anything, and they work like a charm. The NIC is put in a weird spot, but oh well. Not that big of a deal.

Once you get a good one it's perfect. We got about four out of 40 that need repairs. The device is solid and performs like a horse.

We have a large number deployed, with only a very small percentage has has to be repaired. The main fault on these are the HDD. Just give up after a year on a few of them.

These machines have been good for our Faculty and Staff. They are robust and relatively lightweight - something great for teachers who take them back and forth. Out of 30 machines, one has had a faulty fan and a couple have had a small bezel issue. Other than that, they've been maintenance free.

Pretty solid build but the top of the LCD is very very flimsy. For users who travel and place their laptops inside their bags, it doesn't take much to crack the screen. Although the laptop is quick, plenty of storage, I had difficult using its keyboard.

We've deployed about 50 of these devices, many have an issue with the display turning off when the lid is repeatedly closed & opened and the AC power is plugged/unplugged. The display turns off and requires a hard reboot to return to normal.