Dell Latitude 5590 (i5-8250U, IPS-FHD) Laptop Review

[Redaktion]

Ready for business The Dell Latitude 5590 combines performance and versatility into a 15-inch case. Find out in this review how this business companion fares against the competition.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Latitude-5590-i5-8250U-IPS-FHD-Laptop-Review.290308.0.html

[Tomek]

Important info: PCI-e for NVme drive is only 2x. It means SSD like Samsung EVO 960 is getting only 60% of its performance. Crystal Mark shows about 1700mb/s instead of 3200 mb/s drive can achieve. Its shame that Dell limited PCIe to 2x on such business notebook. It should work with 4x like many other modern notebooks

[Tomek]

UDPATE: battery is quite good in latest 5590, the reason result under load is worse than on 5580 is 4 cores instead of 2 cores. Its normal, because performance is far better than previously.
Also IPS screen is not as bad as review shows, I think its just average, could be better, but for day to day activities its enough.

[Agus]

Many things are good with this laptop, BUT there is one thing that drives productivity down. That is when you use Home and End button frequently.
There is no dedicated button for Home and End, which is a big pain. You have to press Fn and Left arrow or Right arrow for Home and End.
Old Dell model has these important buttons as dedicated keys.

[Kgian]

a** a sys admin of many generations of Latitude series going back to 600 & 800 series I have to say that their characteristics vary by generation. Their endurance is pretty solid though 
I am waiting for a batch of 5590 & 5490 in a few weeks.
As always very good and though review. Congrats.

PS
Just for the order, please amend the storage specs with the correct amount. Having 190GB free of 128GB is kind of quantum physics. :)

[NikoB]

How can a laptop with a TDP of 15W for U processor consume without having a discrete video card of 45W and even more than 60? This is absurd. The testers have something wrong with the measurement equipment. There's simply nothing to consume so much. The motherboard consumes a maximum of 15W, IPS 3-4W. SSD 2-3 watts (but it does not participate in stress tests). How did such monstrous consumption figures come under load?

The second question to the editorial staff is why do you test in Idle and then immediately at maximum consumption(Average not really average!)  the noise from the laptop?

Idle Maximum does not say anything to the average consumer of such laptops about real noise when loading in the office and especially (90% of the time) surfing, where the typical load on all the cores is about 10-20%, and if there are many open tabs with multimedia content, the load increases to 25-35%. That's what you need to test how much the laptop consumes at 10%, 20%, 30% of the load on all the cores. It is these levels that show real comfort from using a laptop in a quiet room, especially at night at home. For a long time there is a free software which exactly loads the cores for a specified percentage, such as S&M. And then the technology matter is to lay out the noise levels for each step of the load - 10%, 20, 30, 40, 50 and above.

1000Hz is not at all a comfortable level for the eyes in the presence of PWM, it all depends on the amplitude of the oscillations. The higher it is, the worse it gets. For most users, a pencil test for flicker is more important on 10-40% brightness. If its screen passes at any brightness, can say with confidence that the picture will be comfortable with quality in the rest - high contrast and good color rendering on a matte, glare-free screen and with minimal crystal effect for matte treatment.

[Mattia]

Important info: PCI-e for NVme drive is only 2x. It means SSD like Samsung EVO 960 is getting only 60% of its performance. Crystal Mark shows about 1700mb/s instead of 3200 mb/s drive can achieve. Its shame that Dell limited PCIe to 2x on such business notebook. It should work with 4x like many other modern notebooks

It seems a common features in many notebook, even recents models, I don't know th exact reason, but it might be due to a technical reason, like reducing the generation of heat.

[fox]

Please, please, review 5591! I can't decide whether to buy 5590 or 5591.

The 45W cpus are newer but dissipate 30W more heat than the 15W cpus. with the same colling system it means fan must spin 2x faster and it means louder fan. Is it true?

Is the i7-8650U more suitable for web/youtube/programming work than i7-8850H in terms of fan noise?

Do the 15W cpu and 45W cpu behave the same during normal work and only during the load condition they differ or 45W cpu is not good for office work since it always lasts less on battery and has louder fan than the 15W cpu?

Would it be smarter choice to buy 45W cpu and under-volting it, limiting it to 35W tdp to have the same fan noise / battery time profile as on 15W cpu?

If the 45W cpu tdp changed to 35W, would it help with fan noise and temperatures?

Is the 5591 screen better than 5590 or they differs just in cpu/gpu?

[Mik]

When will release a review of 5591 with 8300H? It is already sold everywhere, but there is still no review. It's clear that IPS is as bad there as in 5590, but the interest is from the cooling system with a 45W processor, instead of 15W in 5590.

[5590owner]

The display is really bad. It can't display a red color, instead just orange. It's like a china low cost display in $300 laptops. It behaves more like TN than IPS. Don't understand how Dell can afford to put there so trash.

[don]

I received this laptop at work. It is fine for general Windows / MS Office work.
One major problem for me is the sound. I need to edit sound files and the quality of output - speaker or headphones is incredibly bad. It is like tin cans connected with a string. I have updated and reinstalled all drivers but the problem seems to be systemic.
Also, sleep mode does not seem to work. This means that battery life is very low and it functions as a laptop heating unit.
I don't understand how anyone can put out this sort of product in 2019. I have an old macbook air at home that does sound and battery life, and everything else for that matter, much much better than this junk.

[Slavek]

I bought one today and I can´t believe it....
Agree with others. Horribly IPS display like TN, very bad colours and pool view angles. Brightness is okay for me, but nothing more. I warn, do not buy this piece of s**t!!! DELL, shame on you!  :-\
I am very disappointed from Dell. I have comparison with Dell E5550 od E7440 and they have perfect displays.

[gladu2]

Wasn't happy with the quality of the matte screen on the Latitude 5590 so I installed a newer 1920x1080 glossy screen, and after calibrating that with the built-in Microsoft screen calibration tool then using the built-in "Intel Graphics Command Center" to adjust RGB color intensity, saturation, contrast, lightness and brightness, now it's suitable for my photo editing, the audio though is not nearly as good as the Harmon Kardon speakers on my old Toshiba but overall I'm happy with this Latitude 5590. I bought it used on eBay and hope my method of improving the screen will help others.