Dell Latitude 5420 vs. Dell Latitude 5480

Dell has released the Latitude 5420, a 14-inch machine, in early-2021. It is powered by up to a quad-core Intel Core i7-1185G7 with a boost clock speed up to 4.80 GHz. The laptop has an integrated graphics option up to Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics (96 Execution Units, 400 → 1350 MHz).

On the other hand, we have the 14-inch Latitude 5480 was introduced by Dell about four years earlier in early-2017. It comes with up to a quad-core Intel Core i7-7820HQ with a boost clock speed up to 3.90 GHz. It has an integrated graphics option up to Intel® HD Graphics 630 (24 Execution Units, 350 → 1100 MHz).

Both Dell Latitude 5420 and Dell Latitude 5480 have the same 14-inch display size. In addition, The Dell Latitude 5420 weighs 3.09 lbs. about 13% lighter than the 3.52 lbs. Dell Latitude 5480. Moreover, measured at 12.65” x 8.35” x 0.76”, the Dell Latitude 5420 is much more portable than the Dell Latitude 5480 at 13.1” x 9” x 0.88”.

There are a toal number of 10 ports and slots available on Dell Latitude 5420. That includes two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a Smart Card Reader, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, an RJ-45 port, a microSD card slot, a headphone jack, and a lock slot. With that said, it has two ports and slots fewer than the Dell Latitude 5480 that has a Thunderbolt 3 port, three USB-A ports, a microSD card slot, a VGA port, a SIM card slot, a headphone jack, a lock slot, an HDMI port, an RJ-45 port, and a power port.

Moving over to upgradability, Dell claims that the Dell Latitude 5420 supports up to 64GB 3200 MHz DDR4 memory that you can upgrade with two memory module slots on the motherboard. It also comes with a single removable M.2 SSD slot that users can replace and upgrade in the future.

For Dell Latitude 5480, it supports up to 16GB 2400 MHz DDR3L memory that you can upgrade with one memory module slot on the motherboard. It also has a single removable M.2 SSD slot that users can replace or upgrade when needed. Besides that, it also comes with a SATA slot where you can install an additional 2.5-inch SATA-based SSD, SSHD, or a hard disk drive.