Dell ships new convertible laptop with a puzzling CPU that had ‘people scratching their heads’ — 9W Core Ultra U7-164U

Available in River Blue, the Latitude 7350 Detachable features a 13.3 inch (2880 x 1920) IPS LCD display, and is powered by the Intel Core Ultra U7-164U vPro processor (it’s also available with the Ultra U5-134U).

The 7350 Detachable includes an 8MP front and rear camera, a 46.5 Wh battery, support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, and it comes with two Thunderbolt 4 ports and an audio jack.

Naming confusion

Interestingly, the device is designed to be serviceable, with technicians able to remove and replace the displays and batteries, although these parts are not user-replaceable. The tablet also has removable PCIe NVMe storage via an M.2 2230 slot, which will limit options for using third-party SSDs.

It’s the Intel Core Ultra U7-164U vPro processor that’s probably one of the most interesting things about the 2-in-1. This new CPU from Intel’s Meteor Lake lineup raised eyebrows due to its naming scheme. The Core Ultra designation, which was previously thought to represent high-performance models, is now apparently also being used for low-power 9W and 15W U-series chips.

The confusion deepens with the numbering of these models. For instance, the Core Ultra 7 164U is a 9W part, whereas the Core Ultra 7 155U is a 15W CPU.

This 9W CPU  is a 12-core, 14-thread model that boasts a max turbo frequency of 4.8 GHz. It features 2 performance cores, 8 efficient cores, and 2 low power efficient cores, each with its own maximum turbo frequency and base frequency.

The processor also comes with 12 MB of  Smart Cache and supports a maximum turbo power of 30W. It’s equipped with an Intel AI Boost NPU with a max frequency of 1.4 GHz, supporting various AI datatypes and software frameworks.

Dell Latitude 7350 Detachable will go on sale sometime in the second quarter, but pricing has yet to be revealed.