Hybrid work, increased collaboration, and more demanding workloads—including emerging AI-assisted tasks—are placing greater expectations on users’ computing setups, from laptops to peripherals and beyond. These demands affect the entire user environment, not just individual components. Relying on aging setups can contribute to inconsistent user experiences across fleets, management complexity, lifecycle misalignment, and compatibility challenges. Upgrading users’ complete setups can help you address these issues while better aligning them with modern work patterns.

We evaluated two Dell complete work setups, each consisting of a laptop and key peripherals: a Dell Pro 13 Premium laptop paired with the latest Dell peripherals and a 2020-era Dell Latitude 9410 laptop paired with earlier-generation Dell peripherals. We combined basic productivity and AI testing, analysis of publicly available peripheral specifications, power management testing, and a juried evaluation in which participants compared the two setups during a Microsoft Teams call. Overall, the latest Dell laptop and peripherals outperformed the older setup; offered stronger connectivity; supported more usability, manageability, and security options; and showed more effective power management. Together, the results demonstrate that upgrading to the latest Dell setups now can help improve the user experience of your users while reducing operational and compatibility challenges from using older devices.

What we tested

Dell Latitude 9410 (2020-era laptop)

• Intel^® Core^™ i7 10610U with 4 cores
• Intel UHD Graphics
• No NPU
• 16 GB of DDR4 memory
• 512 GB of storage
• Support for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1
• 52 Whr battery
• Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
• 14-inch 1,920 x 1,080 display
• 3 lbs.

Dell Pro 13 Premium

• Intel Core Ultra 5 Processor 236V with 8 cores
• Integrated Intel Arc^™ 130V GPU
• Integrated NPU rated at 40 TOPS
• 16 GB of LPDDR5 memory
• 1 TB of storage
• Support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4
• 60 Whr battery
• Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
• 13.3-inch 1,920 x 1,200 display
• 2.65 lbs.

Compared to the six-year-old system, the Dell Pro 13 Premium laptop we tested had a newer processor with more cores, a newer GPU, and an NPU, denoting greater ability to run on-device AI. It also featured faster memory, more storage, and a battery with a higher watt-hour rating. It supported faster Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and ran Windows 11. It weighed less and had a slightly smaller display, but with slightly higher resolution, than the older laptop.

Earlier-gen Dell peripherals

• Dell UltraSharp 32 Video Conferencing Monitor U3223QZ
• Dell Pro Thunderbolt 4 Smart Dock WD25TB4
• Dell Premier Wireless Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) Headset WL7022
• Dell Pro Keyboard KB500

Latest-gen Dell peripherals

• Dell UltraSharp 32 6K Monitor U3224KB
• Dell Pro Thunderbolt 4 Smart Dock SD25TB4
• Dell Pro Plus Wireless ANC Headset WL5024
• Dell Pro Keyboard KM726

How we tested

We tested the laptops and peripherals in four phases:

1. Hands-on basic performance testing with Microsoft PowerPoint, Cinebench 2024, and Copilot features

2. Detailed peripheral comparisons, including additional display, audio, keyboard/mouse, dock features, and OEM-reported power

3. Microsoft Teams juried usability testing of the two whole setups

4. Hands-on measurement of power consumption with an additional energy-efficiency pixels-per-watt metric for external monitors

Our testing aimed to evaluate the practical impact of modern, current-gen Dell setups compared to legacy, earlier-gen setups using an approach that reflects how they’re used in real-world enterprise environments. This report shows how generational improvements in complete work setups could translate into productivity, usability, and manageability benefits.

What we found

Boost productivity performance

Opening large files can strain a system’s compute and memory resources. Shorter file-open times can indicate a system’s ability to handle data-intensive tasks more efficiently, which may help users begin reviewing, editing, or collaborating on content sooner. Figure 1 shows our findings.

To assess processor performance for resource-intensive tasks, we used the Cinebench 2024 benchmarking tool. Cinebench 2024 renders a 3D scene with CPU-intensive Redshift for Cinema 4D software.² We report both multi- and single-core scores to provide insight into how the processors perform under different CPU utilization scenarios (see Figure 2).

Improve speed for helpful AI features

As AI-assisted features become more common in everyday workflows, organizations are exploring how they can support productivity and efficiency. As shown in Figures 3 and 4, the Dell Pro 13 Premium completed two Copilot tasks more quickly than the legacy Dell laptop, potentially saving time for users completing AI-enabled tasks.

Offer more usability, connectivity, manageability, and security options with newer Dell peripherals

Using Dell documentation, we compared the specifications of the newer and legacy peripherals to understand how the two solutions differ at a feature level. We identified several improvements for the current-gen Dell devices and grouped these differences into five helpful categories for enterprises:

• Performance & capability
• User experience & ergonomics
• Connectivity & compatibility
• Power, battery, & efficiency
• IT management & security

See the science behind this report for specifications and links to all corresponding peripheral documentation.

Dell UltraSharp 32 6K monitor

• Better resolution (6,144 x 3,456 vs. 3,840 x 2,160 for the older 4K monitor)
• 59% more pixels per inch (PPI)
• More versatile adjustment options
• Newer I/O connectivity
• .25 and .26 reported watts consumed in Off and Standby modes vs. .3 reported watts consumed for the older 4K monitor in both modes
• Supports picture in picture (PIP)
• Brighter (by 50 nits) and better visibility for well-lit environments or when near a window

Dell Pro Thunderbolt 4 Smart Dock

• Newer HDMI connectivity
• Support for 6K and 8K displays
• An additional USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A ports for storage devices
• Support for faster Dell and non-Dell Ethernet connectivity
• Support for MacOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems
• Remote management for Intel vPro PCs via Intel Active Management Technology (AMT)
• Port disablement security to block access at the firmware or OS level
• Support for Dell Device Management Console Configuration Policy

Dell Pro Plus Wireless Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) Headset

• Using ANC: Up to 2x the OEM-reported talk time and 4.1x the OEM-reported listening time
• Without ANC: Up to 2.8x the OEM-reported talk time and 5.2x the OEM-reported listening time
• Includes Sleep mode to conserve power during inactivity
• Offers a Fast Charging mode in which 15 minutes of charging could deliver approximately 12 hours of listening without ANC
• Can be connected to two hosts at once

Dell Pro Keyboard KM726

• Includes mouse
• Includes Copilot button
• Support for newer Bluetooth wireless connectivity
• 1 year more of reported battery life for the keyboard
• 10 additional programmable keys and buttons

Communicate more clearly in Microsoft Teams

Because user experience can shape collaboration, we conducted a Microsoft Teams–based juried evaluation of the two desktop setups to assess real-world collaboration experiences. Jurors rated visual and audio aspects of each setup on a scale of 1 (very poor) to 5 (excellent) during a live Teams video call. Overall, jurors rated the Teams call quality with the newer Dell setup higher than with the legacy setup (4.4 average rating versus 3.6) and reported significantly greater satisfaction with the overall Teams call experience (4.8 versus 3.0).

Jurors also rated headset audio quality higher with the newer setup (4.4 versus 3.0) and found the ANC capabilities of the newer headphones substantially more effective at reducing environmental noise (4.8 versus 2.6). Jurors indicated that the newer headphones also helped them stay more focused on the call, reflected in average ratings of 4.6 versus 2.4. Jurors also noted that the new Dell headset microphone sounded richer than the old one.

Together, the improved average ratings in Table 1 suggest that upgrading Dell peripherals—particularly headsets—could translate into more focused Teams meetings, clearer communication, and a better overall collaboration experience.

Manage power more efficiently across each setup

Devices that draw higher levels of power can increase energy costs for organizations, particularly when multiplied across large fleets, and for users working from home. We averaged the power draw of external monitor-less setups (i.e., laptop and the accompanying dock, headset, keyboard, and mouse) as reported by Extech 380803 power analyzers, over 15 minutes. We found that while idle and running a Teams call, the Dell Pro 13 Premium used less power on average than the Dell Latitude 9410 laptop (see Figure 5). By drawing less power under certain conditions, newer setups can help organizations reduce ongoing energy consumption while meeting modern performance and collaboration needs.

Deliver more pixels per watt with modern displays

Monitors, due to their size and resolution, can use significantly more power than laptops or other peripherals. As such, we evaluated the monitors independently from the rest of our setups. As Figure 7 shows, the new Dell UltraSharp 32 6K Monitor delivered more pixels per consumed watt of energy than the legacy Dell monitor, indicating improved display efficiency.

Together with the laptop and peripheral power measurements, the pixels-per-watt performance metric of the monitors highlight how improvements in power efficiency across individual components could improve power management for each user.

Conclusion

Evolving workloads, collaboration tools, and hybrid work models are raising expectations for modern endpoints. Aging laptops and peripherals can struggle to keep pace with these demands and can add to the ongoing maintenance and support burdens facing your IT teams. In our testing, the latest Dell Pro 13 Premium outperformed a legacy Dell laptop by 32 percent in productivity tasks and offered a broader set of usability, connectivity, manageability, and security-related options. Together, these improvements indicate that upgrading aging laptops and peripherals as part of a solution-level modernization effort could help organizations deliver more consistent user experiences, better align device lifecycles, and support integration with modern collaboration platforms and workflows.