Dell’s thinnest Latitude lets you control video calls with the touchpad

Dell really wants to make video calls easier. Like many technology providers passionate about overcoming the hurdles of remote and hybrid work, the company has experimented with different ways to make web calling easier, from a 4K monitor with a built-in 4K webcam to the concept of a magnetic wireless webcam that can plug into the middle of the monitor. or elsewhere. Dell’s latest development is to extend the touchpad’s capabilities to include the Asus ScreenPad and NumberPad.

The Dell Latitude 9330, announced Tuesday, has a glass touchpad that offers one-touch access to Zoom microphone mute, video on/off, screen sharing, and chat options.

Asus has been offering improved input management through laptop touchpads for a long time now. Its latest ScreenPad technology transforms the touchpad into a 2160×1080 resolution LCD touch screen with the ability to launch various applications, application-specific menus and applications designed specifically for the tiny screen. ScreenPad is also much more colorful.

Meanwhile, Asus NumberPad (currently in version 2.0) turns touchpad-enabled devices into a glowing number pad.

With the Latitude 9330, Dell introduces an enhanced touch input panel, offering just four controls for Zoom calls on the business-oriented Latitude’s touch panel. These features only work with Zoom, but a Dell spokesperson told Ars Technica that this is subject to change based on user feedback and needs.

Dell also explained how the touchpad works:

“When joining a Zoom meeting, the laptop connects to the Zoom app and communicates with various controls in Zoom to enable/disable the microphone, share the screen, enable/disable the video and the chat window,” a Dell Ars spokesperson said.

“The touchpad is already a touch surface, so we rounded off part of the touchpad to turn it into buttons. When entering a meeting, the video and mute buttons are disabled by default (the default behavior of the collaborative touchpad varies by microphone). and the default cameras set by the user in the Zoom app settings) appear in red on the touchpad. The chat and share screen buttons will be white. As soon as you touch the “Enable video”or “Mute sound”buttons, they will turn white. “

Further focus on video calls is visible from the laptop’s 1080p webcam and “electromechanical camera shutter,”according to press releases, that automatically opens and closes when a video call starts and ends. The laptop also has four microphones and AI-based background noise cancellation.

Dell’s latest Latitude also has additional AI-powered features that are increasingly seen in laptop releases of late. For example, the webcam can detect if you’re no longer looking at the screen or if someone is peeking over your shoulder, so the laptop can dim the screen for privacy and battery life.

Also impressive is Dell, updating the Latitude’s reputation for being bulky and boring office laptops. In addition to the unique touchpad, the Latitude 9330 is the thinnest Latitude notebook at 0.55 inches. The 2-in-1 laptop features a 13-inch Latitude 9000 series design with a tall 13.3-inch 16:10 touchscreen, 2560×1600 pixel resolution and up to 500 nits of brightness.

Like the Latitude and Precision laptops Dell announced last month, the Latitude 9330 can use both Wi-Fi and a wired connection at the same time.

Dell will sell the thin Latitude with a vPro-ready 12th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, 32GB of LPDDR5-5200 RAM, and 1TB of PCIe 4.0 x4 storage. Port selection is limited to three USB-C ports, including two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a 3.5mm jack, and an optional SIM tray.

Dell hasn’t revealed pricing for the Latitude 9330, but will release a 2-in-1 in June.