The device we’re looking at today stays true to its Latitude name and is meant to deliver the perfect business experience. It’s targeted at people whose second wife/husband is their job. Dell promises security and reliability with the Latitude 5590 with their enhanced encryption and claims the device to be MIL-STD 810G compliant. They have also equipped the notebook with the latest and greatest Ultra-Low Voltage chip from Intel – the Core i7-8650U, which offers slightly higher base and turbo clocks (1.9 GHz up from 1.8 GHz on the i7-8550U base and 4.2 GHz up from the 4.0 GHz turbo speeds).
The Latitude series are also blessed with the Dell docking support, which makes expanding your work on more than one screen easy and neat. In addition to that, the Latitude 5590 has an SSD option and 8 GB of DDR4 2400 MHz RAM in its sleeve, as well as a Full HD IPS screen. As always, we shall review the performance and features of this device and check if it justifies the premium price point and how it fares against the vast competition in this branch.
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: http://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-latitude-15-5590/
Contents
Specs Sheet
Dell Latitude 15 5590 technical specifications table
Upcoming
Configurations
What’s in the box?
The box doesn’t move away from the modern box trend and contains the usual manuals and guides, as well as a 65W power brick, cable and (surprisingly) a Dell Latitude 5590.
Design and construction
The Latitude 5590 comes in a well build plastic shell that feels sturdier even than some aluminum devices. Whatever angle you look Latitude 5590 at, it just exudes business. The device measures at 376 x 251 x 20.6 mm (14.8″ x 9.87″ x 0.8″) and weights 1.88 kg (4.14 lbs) – not the lightest of the competition but it is too heavy to carry around either.
The body of the device is built on one polycarbonate monocoque, which has a removable bottom panel. The screen itself is mounted by means of the hinges, which can be seen on the outside. They look super sturdy and are one of the strongest points of the notebook.
Opening the lid is tough for using only one hand, however, results in less shakiness in an upright position. The monocoque we were talking about earlier has a cutout for the keyboard, which can be removed easily, as it is held in place by a couple of clips. The typing experience is on point with clicky tactile keys and fast response. In addition to that, the keyboard is equipped with a backlight. Next, we have the touchpad that serves the purpose perfectly, while not being the best one out there. Latitude 5590 also has a joystick mock and two sets of stand-alone mouse buttons, which are legacy from the older Latitude models.
On the port front, we have connectors scattered all over the place. The sides of the device do not have so many openings at the expense of the back. There are two USB ports, one of which is Type-C and supports DisplayPort output, while the other one is a regular Type-A. Next to them, we have the SD card reader that comes with a neat cover, protecting it from dust and particles. The last slot on this side is optional and is dedicated a Smart Card reader.
On the other side are located the audio jack, an optional SIM card slot, as well as a USB 3.0 Type-A and a VGA connector. Next, we turn the device to show us its back, where we see an RJ-45 connector, embedded into the right hinge. Right next to it is the hot air exhaust drill. After that, we have an HDMI connector and another USB 3.0 Type-A port, as well as the power plug, which itself is integrated into the other hinge.
Disassembly and maintenance
The bottom panel of Latitude 5590 is held by only 8 Phillips head screws, meaning that basically everyone would be able to access the internals without any problems. We like that the screws are designed in a way, that when unscrewed they stay attached to the panel, so you won’t lose them – service guys’ worst nightmare.
Once inside, we see a slender design, perfectly fitting the outside of the laptop. Stuff is minimalistic with dark colors, and even the 68Wh battery stickers are made to look of an exquisite quality.
As you can see from the images there is only one heat pipe placed on top of the CPU, so don’t expect any feats from the cooling, although it should be enough to cool an Ultra-Low Voltage CPU.
Right underneath the CPU are located the two RAM DIMMs which support up to 32 GB of memory, and beneath them is the behemoth 68Wh battery.
On the left of the device, we found the Wi-Fi controller, as well as the M.2 SATA SSD drive. Beneath the SSD slot, you can see space dedicated to an HDD drive, although our unit doesn’t have the appropriate connector for the purpose.
Display quality
Dell Latitude 15 5590 comes with a Full HD (1920×1080) IPS panel with 15.6-inch diagonal, 0.18 x 0.18 mm pixel pitch and 142 ppi. The panel is manufactured by BOE and has a model number NV15N42 and can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from at least 60 cm.
Viewing angles are good.
We’ve recorded a peak brightness 246 nits in the center of the screen and 237 nits as an average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 10%. The correlated color temperature at maximum brightness is 6800K – just a little colder than the standard 6500K. When we go along the grayscale it comes even closer to the optimal temperature with 6680K. You can see how these values change at 140 nits (81% brightness) in the image below.
The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the screen should be no more than 4.0 and if you are planning to do color-sensitive work, it should be lower than 2.0. The contrast ratio is very good – 1280:1 before calibration and 1190:1 after calibration.
Color reproduction
To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.
Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.
Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.
Sadly, Latitude 15 5590’s display covers only 50% of the colors in sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 in CIE1976.
Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 nits luminance and sRGB gamma mode.
We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.
The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.
The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and surrounding light conditions.
Response time (Gaming capabilities)
We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.
We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 34 ms. A fairly slow panel to be honest.
PWM (Screen flickering)
Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.
Dell Latitude 15 5590’s brightness levels are PWM-adjusted at all levels except the maximum, although it does it at a relatively high frequency, which partially reduces the negative effect.
Blue light emissions
Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.
Conclusion
The Full HD display of Dell Latitude 15 5590 has an IPS panel which, as usual, results in comfortable viewing angles and good contrast ratio. We could say that the screen is a very good one if it wasn’t for the poor color range – it can display only half of the colors found on the Internet.
Buy our profiles
Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for Dell Latitude 15 5590 configurations with 15.6″ BOE NV15N42 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: Buy from Amazon.com
*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.
Read more about the profiles HERE.
In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.
Office Work
Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.
Design and Gaming
This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.
Health-Guard
THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.
Sound
Dell Latitude 15 5590’s speakers sound very good. The tones are crisp in the whole range from low to high frequencies.
Software
Dell sells the device (region dependent) with a 64-bit Windows 10 Pro edition onboard and all drivers preinstalled. Anyhow, in case you need to reinstall or upgrade, you can download the necessary drivers here: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/latitude-15-5590-laptop/drivers
Battery
As always, the battery tests were run with Windows power saving setting turned and Wi-Fi turned on, and the screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits. Dell Latitude 5590 comes with a hefty 68Wh battery, which has enough juice to give you around 10 hours of web surfing time and a pinch over 7 hours of video playback. This should be enough to get you through a busy day just on battery power. Also if you opt to game away from the plug, you’re session will be no longer than two hours.
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.
CPU – Intel Core i7-8650U
The Intel Core i7-8650U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.
However, due to the core count change, the base frequency of the Core i7-8550U is lowered to only 1.9 GHz while Turbo Boost frequencies remain pretty high – 4.2 GHz. This ensures considerably higher multi-core and single-core performance during short workloads before going back to more bearable frequencies considering the 15W TDP but most of the other specs and features remain the same.
The chip also incorporates a newer Intel Gen 9.5 integrated graphics called Intel UHD Graphics 620. The support for Google’s VP9 codec and H.265/HEVC Main 10 is still the most notable feature of the iGPU. Intel claims that the new UHD 620 chips improve the overall power consumption compared to the previous one.
You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
GPU – Intel UHD Graphics 620
Intel UHD Graphics 620 is a refresh of the HD Graphics 620 found as an integrated solution in many ULV Kaby Lake processors. UHD Graphics 620 is codenamed “Kaby Lake R U GT2” and it’s a part of the Gen 9.5 generation.
Intel UHD Graphics 620 has roughly the same performance as HD Graphics 620, depending on the other components in the system. UHD Graphics 620’s performance is similar to AMD Radeon R5 M420X and NVIDIA GeForce 910M/920M.
You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gameplay recordings with Intel UHD Graphics 620
Storage performance
The Latitude 5590 uses Toshiba’s KSG60ZMV256G M.2 SATA SSD with 256 GB. Its speeds are typical for a SATA device – 540.3 MB/s Read and 349.1 MB/s Write speeds, which is not on par with the NVMe drives, but is definitely better than a regular HDD solution.
Gaming tests
You can enjoy some gaming on the Latitude 5590, but in order to do so, you need to sacrifice a lot of eye candy and even turn the resolution down in the case of GTA V for example.
| DOTA 2 | Full HD, Low (Check settings) | Full HD, Normal (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 59 fps | 31 fps | – fps |
| Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) | HD 768p, Low (Check settings) | HD 768p, Medium (Check settings) | HD 768p, Very High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 28 fps | – fps | – fps |
| Min FPS | 17 fps | – fps | – fps |
Temperatures
The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and the GPU respectively. This won’t give real-life representation but with our methodology, we are trying to give you the most optimal results.
The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test, which simulates a heavy task run on your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a part of the second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark, which imitates a very heavy task, run on the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones at the end of the test, which is 15 minutes, simulating the CPU load when it renders a video, for example.
0-15 min. CPU torture test
The new Core i7-8650U has a base frequency of 1.9 GHz and reaches up to 4.2 GHz in Turbo mode. We found that the CPU inside our unit is idling at a relatively low 32C. When we started the test there was a short burst around the 3.4-3.5 GHz, when the frequency dropped to around 3.2 GHz and finally, after reaching a threshold of 88C, the frequencies plummeted to 2.6 GHz, rendering the Latitude 5590 unable to utilize the higher clock speed of its Core i7-8650U.
From then on to the end of the second-minute mark the frequencies stabilized at 2.6 GHz as well as the temperature fluctuating between 72C and 73C.
During the final 13 minutes of this torture test, we saw a little increase in clock speeds at the beginning and then slowly going back to 2.6 GHz realms, before establishing at 2.5 GHz with all-time lows of 2.4 GHz and an average for the whole test shy above 2.6 GHz, which is not the best result. Anyhow, we should keep in mind that those are extreme conditions and such a behavior won’t occur during day to day usage. Temperature-wise, the Latitude 5590 maintained adequate package temperature values, giving an average of 73C.
Lastly, we measured relatively cool temperatures on the outside of the device.
Verdict
Dell is a company with huge traditions in portable enterprise and business computers. One of its main rivals is Lenovo (formerly IBM) with its ThinkPad series and the ThinkPad L570 in particular. More challenge in this category is found in the face of HP’s EliteBook.
One of the main features of the Latitude 15 5590 is the new Intel Core i7-8650U processor which offers slightly higher clocks than the Core i7-8550U. As we saw in the benchmarks, there is hardly any difference between the two CPUs, and that is mainly because of the nature of the devices they are inside of. A turbo clock boost of 200 MHz in a business laptop is completely useless, in our opinion, given the results we encountered. If we were to compare that machine to Dell’s own XPS 13 9370, we would see not only that the Dell scores better in the CPU department, but in the GPU game, it totally defeats the Latitude 5590.
Anyway, if we juxtapose the Latitude 5590 not to an exquisite device such as the XPS 13, but more like to – Lenovo V330, we could see that there is more or less an improvement. All in all, we cannot say with certainty whether the CPU is worth the upgrade or not, but when we test more devices with this processor, we are going to update the information.
Another feature that acts like a double-edged sword is the display of the Latitude 5590. Of course an IPS panel is never unnecessary, given the high contrast ratio and good viewing angles but here the screen itself is not the best on the market, especially at this price point – it lacks half of the colors in the sRGB gamut (those you can see on Internet and HD television) and not only that but it appears to use PWM for all brightness levels, which is fixed, of course, by our Health-Guard Profile.
Pros
- All-new Core i7-8650U onboard
- Good and tough design
- IPS display
- Backlit keyboard
- Good battery life
Cons
- PWM-adjusted for all brightness levels (fixed by our profiles)
- Displays only 50% of sRGB colors
The 
Intel’s Core i7-6200U is part of the 7th Generation Kaby Lake CPUs and it’s the direct successor of the Core i5-5200U (Broadwell) and Core i5-6200U (Skylake). It’s also based on the same architecture as the aforementioned chips with little differences that should bring a small performance increase and a bump in power consumption. However, the new CPU is clocked at 2.5 GHz and its Turbo Boost frequency is 3.1 GHz opposed to the 2.3 – 2.8 GHz clocks on the previous Core i5-6200U.
Intel’s HD Graphics 620 integrated iGPU can be found in various ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors from the Kaby Lake generation. The GT2 version of the graphics chip uses 24 EUs (Execution Units) that can be clocked up to 1050 MHz and it has a base frequency of 300 MHz but the former can vary depending on the CPU. Since the iGPU doesn’t have a dedicated memory of its own – or eDRAM for that matter – it uses the available RAM on the system which is 2x 64-bit DDR3 or DDR4.
The 
The Intel Core i7-8550U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.
The NVIDIA GeForce 940MX is a refreshed version of the older 940M mobile chip but paired with a faster GDDR5 memory and slightly higher clock speeds, which result in noticeably better performance compared to the standard 940M. However, some OEMs will still choose to use the cheaper DDR3 version of the GPU.
MSI’s Raider line-up of gaming notebooks is probably the most refined of all the devices the company offers. They employ fast and powerful hardware, input devices which are of very good quality and also a 120 Hz Full HD monitor while keeping the temperatures adequate inside a thin form factor. We certainly like where the gaming laptop industry is going and we are looking forward to introducing the MSI GE63VR 7RF to you.
The Core i7-7700HQ is Kaby Lake’s top-shelf direct successor of the Skylake Core i7-6700HQ offering slightly higher clock speeds on the almost identical architecture and TDP. While Intel markets Kaby Lake’s architecture as “14nm+”, the Core i7-7700HQ is still on the same 14nm node with the only significant update being in the iGPU department. That’s why the slightly altered clock speeds (2.8 – 3.8 GHz vs 2.6 – 3.5 GHz) bring not more than 10% increase in performance compared to the Core i7-6700HQ. We still have the supported Hyper-Threading technology with 4/8 – core/thread design, the same 45W TDP and 6MB cache.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is the second fastest mobile GPU after the GTX 1080. It’s part of NVIDIA’s Pascal generation of GPUs and unlike previous releases, the company finally closes the gap between mobile and desktop graphics processors and that’s why there’s no “M” in the branding of Pascal GPUs. All thanks to the 16nm TSMC manufacturing process of the GPU, which allows better thermals and overall performance in a smaller form factor. That’s a big technology jump compared to the 28nm Maxwell generation.
MSI GE63VR 7RF doesn’t fall short of its larger brother in any aspect. Despite the size difference, not only it matches the 
The GeForce MX150 is an entry-level mobile card that is part of the latest NVIDIA Pascal lineup of GPUs, based on the GP108 chip paired with 2GB of GDDR5 memory via 64-bit interface. The GPU is the successor of GeForce 940MX and it was announced in Q2 of 2017.
The 
The Core m5-6Y54 CPU is part of the Skylake generation processors and it’s part of the very power efficient SoCs from the m lineup. Due to its extremely low TDP, which can be adjusted from 3.5W up to 7W, but normally being 4.5W, the SoC can be integrated into passively cooled 2-in-1 devices, ultrabooks or tablets. The processor incorporates two cores supporting the crucial Hyper-Threading technology ticking at 1.1 GHz and can go up to 2.7 GHz for one active core and 2.7 GHz for two active cores. It’s manufactured using the latest 14nm FinFET process.
Normally, the Intel HD Graphics 515 can be found on the latest Core m Skylake SoCs but it’s considered as a low-end iGPU. It represents the GT2 variants of the Skylake iGPUs and features 24 of the so-called EUs (Execution Units). They are clocked at 300 MHz and can go up to 1000 MHz but that depends on the CPU model.
The 
The 
The Intel Core i7-8550U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.
AMD Radeon RX 540 is based on the Polaris architecture and consists of 8 CUs, 16 ROPs, 32 Texture Units and 512 Stream Processors. According to AMD it can go up to 1219 MHz on demand and comes in two variants – 2GB and 4GB GDDR5 memory.
The 
What we have in front of us today is the HP ProBook 440 G5. As its name suggests, it is aimed at professionals, either in a business or freelancers, so it promises to be reliable, secure and of course – productive. This one is the fourth consecutive device from the fifth generation ProBook 400 series that we got our hands on. We have previously reviewed the 3rd generation of this model – 
The Latitude 15 3590 is a budget business device manufactured by Dell. It is meant to cover the most important security features of the Latitude line up while keeping the costs low. This, according to Dell, makes it the perfect laptop for growing businesses and we are here to test that. Of course, when you want to keep the price down, you have to make compromises either with hardware, or other areas. Well, Dell did that in a reasonable manner.
The 
