Latitude 9510 lappy has a speakerphone so you can tell the conference call all about your 30-hour battery

Dell's latest premium business laptop – the Latitude 9510 – boasts, among other things, a 30-hour battery, an optional 5G cellular radio, and, er, a built-in speakerphone system.

There is a lot to unpack here, so let's start with the battery. Thirty hours is pretty much unprecedented. The only thing that has really come close was Samsung's Snapdragon 8cx-powered Galaxy Book S, which the Korean giant introduced last August and which promised up to 23 hours.

Dell has managed to accomplish that while using Intel's standard Core tech, which is somewhat impressive. There is a caveat, however. To get the promised 30-hour lifespan, you have to stump up for the six-cell 88Wh battery. At the time of writing, it was not immediately clear if this would be an optional upgrade or a default for the more expensive models. We've asked Dell for clarification.

It's easy to dismiss the Latitude 9510's promised battery life as a gimmick designed to grab headlines. After all, there aren't many situations where the standard business traveller is absent from a wall socket for more than a day. Even on ultra long-haul journeys, like from the UK to Australia, you can pretty much guarantee you will have mains power at some point. If not in your seat, then certainly at the airport, while you connect to your next flight.

On the other hand, the long battery life could serve as an insurance policy. It will mean that should you forget to plug your machine in overnight, you will still be able to work as normal the following day.

Moving on, there is the optional cellular radio. Again, there's no pricing information, nor clarity as to whether it will appear as a default feature on one of the more specced-out Latitude 9510s. Punters can choose between a Qualcomm Snapdragon X20 LTE modem or a Snapdragon X55 5G modem. Sadly, though, according to the specs sheet, this is only available on the 2-in-1 convertible model.

The Latitude 9510 houses the 5G antennas within the speaker system, in order to save space and improve signal strength. There's also an eSIM option, if your network supports it.

Talk to me

The other feature Dell is eager to tout on this machine is the "built-in speakerphone". What does this mean in practice? The Latitude 9510 is optimised for voice conversations, combining four microphones as well as a speaker system.

It makes sense that Dell would prioritise this particular selling point, especially given the inherent business angle of this machine.

And then there is the design. The Dell Latitude has a 15-inch InfinityEdge display with super-tight bezels. This is engineered to be highly energy efficient, allowing the Texan PC giant to squeeze as much life out of the batteries as possible. While it's only rated to 1080p, it is capable of producing 400 nits of brightness, which is slightly better than the display on the 2019 MacBook Air.

It's also quite light, too, weighing 1.45kg (3.2lbs). This promises to make it easy to lug around.

Dell is yet to release the more granular specs for the Latitude 9510. We know it supports "up to" Intel's i7 vPro processors, but it remains schtum about which ones. Similarly, the manufacturer says it can support up to 1TB of M.2 NVMe storage and 16GB of RAM, but hasn't disclosed what particular configurations will be available.

We do know the Latitude 9510 will be available on 26 March. Sadly, "how much" and "where" remains a stubborn mystery. ®