Dell Precision 5480

The laptop categories of "mobile workstation" and "ultraportable" are virtually a contradiction in terms, but the Dell Precision 5480 (starts at $1,919; $4,215.71 as tested) comes close to joining them. At 3.26 pounds, this 14-inch system is barely over the ultraportable redline of 3 pounds, yet combines a ferocious Intel Core i9 CPU with Nvidia RTX 3000 Ada professional graphics and plenty of independent software vendor (ISV) certifications for demanding design, 3D rendering, and engineering apps. It lacks the graphical muscle and epic expandability of heftier workstations, but it's an impressive blend of power and portability.

Configurations and Design: The Little Hemi Engine That Could 

Like its Dell Precision 5470 predecessor reviewed here in August 2022, the 5480 starts with a model that we don't consider a real workstation—the $1,919 base configuration relies on its Core i5 processor's integrated graphics instead of a discrete GPU, as well as a skimpy 256GB solid-state drive and 1,920-by-1,200-pixel display.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Our $4,215.71 test unit (pause for Dell to remind us that 99 of 100 Precisions are bought at corporate bulk discounts, not the Dell.com prices we quote) is fully loaded. It has the maximum available processor—Intel's Core i9-13900H (six Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, 20 threads) with vPro management tech—and memory, 64GB of DDR5. It also has the fastest graphics silicon on the menu, the 8GB RTX 3000 Ada, and a 2,560-by-1,600-pixel touch screen. A 1TB NVMe SSD holds Windows 11 Pro. 

Error-correcting-code (ECC) memory is not an option as it is on full-sized mobile workstations for ultra-precise data science and analytic tasks. The storage ceiling is 4TB. Buyers on smaller budgets can opt for a Core i7 chip or Nvidia's 6GB RTX A1000 or 8GB RTX 2000 Ada GPU.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Clad in anodized Titan Gray aluminum with a carbon fiber palm rest, the 5480 looks tiny compared with its beefy cousins. At 0.74 by 12.2 by 8.3 inches, it's both trimmer and lighter than the 14-inch creative professional's laptop the MSI Stealth 14 Studio (0.75 by 12.4 by 9.7 inches, 3.75 pounds). Its 16-inch stablemate, the recent Editors' Choice-award-winning Dell Precision 5680, is 0.87 by 13.9 by 9.5 inches and 4.46 pounds. 

The Precision has passed MIL-STD 810H torture tests against travel hazards like shock, vibration, and temperature extremes and feels sturdy despite its sleekness, with almost no flex if you grasp the screen corners or mash the keyboard. The screen bezels are plenty thin, and a face recognition webcam and fingerprint reader built into the power button give you two ways to skip typing passwords with Windows Hello.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

As with Dell's XPS laptops or Apple's MacBooks, the 5480's input/output ports are strikingly similar—two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports on each side (total of four), plus a headphone jack at left and microSD and security lock slots at right. The AC adapter has a USB-C connector. Dell does put a USB-C dongle in the box with one USB Type-A and one HDMI port, so you can plug in older peripherals or an external monitor, but you'll have to settle for Wi-Fi 6E instead of Ethernet office networking.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Using the Dell Precision 5480: Traveling Light 

With 1080p, 1440p, and even 5-megapixel webcams becoming more common, it's disappointing that Dell has stuck with a low-res 720p camera for the Precision 5480. The webcam does capture reasonably well-lit and colorful images with minimal noise or static, and is modern enough so the Windows Camera app offers the recently added auto framing and background blur options. 

The backlit keyboard has a shallow and hollow but fairly snappy typing feel. The cursor arrow keys are arranged in the eternally accursed HP-style row, with hard-to-hit, half-height up and down arrows stacked between full-sized left and right, rather than the proper inverted T. You must pair the up and down arrow keys with the Fn key for Page Up and Page Down, but you'll find real Home and End keys on the top row, and the top keys including Escape and Delete aren't too tiny.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

We're not wild about buttonless touchpads on mobile workstations because many computer-aided design (CAD) and other professional apps rely on the middle mouse button (which, to be fair, Windows lets you emulate with a three-finger tap). The Precision's pad glides smoothly and takes just the right amount of pressure for a quiet click. 

Speakers flanking the keyboard and bottom-firing subwoofers produce sound that isn't super loud but punchy and clear, not harsh or tinny even at top volume. You won't hear much bass but you can make out overlapping tracks. Except for 3D audio via headphones, the Dell Optimizer software focuses on removing background noise and optimizing voice quality for conferencing rather than offering music or movie presets or an equalizer. 

The 2,560-by-1,600-pixel touch screen doesn't tilt back quite as far as I'd like but looks sharp, with ample brightness and wide viewing angles (though the touch glass catches reflections). Contrast is deep and white backgrounds are clean instead of grayish or dingy. Fine details are crisp, with no pixelation around the edges of letters. Colors don't quite pop like poster paints but are rich and well saturated.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Dell Optimizer works with the webcam to provide walk-away lock and wake on approach, even dimming the display if you look away or warning you of an over-the-shoulder onlooker. It also, well, optimizes network bandwidth and performance for favorite applications and includes a choice of power, performance, and cooling-fan-noise modes. Dell offers an array of extended and on-site service options for its workstations.

Testing the Dell Precision 5480: Small But Mighty 

For our benchmark charts, we compared the Precision 5480's performance with that of a relatively slim 16-inch mobile workstation—the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 6—as well as three compact laptops aimed at creative professionals. The MSI Stealth 14 Studio and Asus Zenbook 14X OLED are the bargains of the group at around $1,900 and $1,500 respectively, while the 14.4-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 convertible joins the ThinkPad in the over-$3K club. You can see their basic specs in the table below.

Productivity Tests 

We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL's PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.

Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Finally, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

The Dell landed firmly in the middle of a blazing fast pack, blowing away the 4,000 points in PCMark 10 that indicate excellent productivity for everyday apps (all these systems are ridiculous overkill for the likes of Word and Excel) and proving itself an ace Photoshop partner. 

Graphics Tests 

We test Windows PCs' graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). 

We also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better.

These game simulations are not ideal benchmarks for a mobile workstation, though the Precision crushed the aging RTX 3050 of the Zenbook. It's certainly capable of some after-hours gaming, but meant for more responsible tasks. 

Workstation-Specific Tests 

Similar to its Photoshop counterpart, PugetBench for Adobe Premiere Pro 15 is an automated extension that puts a PC through a full complement of video editing tasks. We also run Blender, an open-source 3D suite for modeling, animation, simulation, and compositing. We record the time it takes for its built-in Cycles path tracer to render two photo-realistic scenes of BMW cars, one using the system's CPU and one the GPU (lower times are better). BMW artist Mike Pan has said he considers the scenes too fast for rigorous testing, but they're a popular benchmark. 

Perhaps our most important workstation test, SPECviewperf 2020, renders, rotates, and zooms in and out of solid and wireframe models using viewsets from popular ISV apps. We run the 1080p resolution tests based on PTC's Creo CAD platform; Autodesk's Maya modeling and simulation software for film, TV, and games; and the SolidWorks 3D rendering package by Dassault Systemes. Results are in frames per second. 

Since we don't usually run these benchmarks on content-creator laptops, I swapped in two 16-inch mobile workstations—Dell's semi-slimline Precision 5680 (Intel Core i9, Nvidia RTX 5000 Ada) and our heavyweight Editors' Choice award winner the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 1 (Core i9, Nvidia RTX A5500).

The Precision 5480 trailed in most of these tests, mainly because its RTX 3000 Ada is Nvidia's only fourth fastest professional GPU; larger laptops have more power and cooling to handle higher-power ones. Regardless, it performed more than capably and wasn't all that far behind the previous-generation-flagship RTX A5500 in the ThinkPad P16. 

Battery and Display Tests 

We test laptop battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off. 

To gauge display performance, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

The 5480 delivered impressive battery life despite having the brightest screen in the group (even topping its advertised 500 nits peak). Its color coverage is a bit shy of the Asus' and ThinkPad P1's OLED screens but matches all but the finest IPS panels (i.e., top HP workstations' DreamColor displays).

Verdict: A Tempting Compact Choice 

As laptops go, mobile workstations are ultra-engineered and ultra-expensive, built to run and run while tackling the most demanding tasks. The Dell Precision 5480 doesn't dazzle us with sheer performance, with a Core i9 CPU that barely outstrips a Core i7 and merely great instead of stupendous graphics, but it's miles more portable than the 16- and 17-inch workstations at the head of the class. We doubt Pixar artists would choose it for 3D animation, but architects or engineers who need to bring drawings to clients' offices will be delighted with it.