You can check it for yourself, every Dell model has the full repair instructions posted somewhere on the Dell site (go to the Support page, select the model, and open the manuals tab). For instance, https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/latitude-13-7390-laptop_owne... is the one for the Dell Latitude 7390. I always check these guides before buying a laptop, to make sure I'm not getting something like non-replaceable RAM.
I am a recent Thinkpad to Latitude convert, the Dells are just better, less cost, better hardware, maybe less Chinese malware.
I mean, an more or less than any other brand or manufacturer?
I'm presuming either the people who transgressed in that scenario have learned, or they're no longer in a position to make those decisions, or there's more oversight etc etc etc, and / or that the community is more vigilant.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-...
Personally, I try to avoid Dell because they set up their laptops such that the display doesn't work if the backup battery is dead, a move that seems entirely designed to make customers think that something more serious is wrong. Relatedly, they make the battery hard to reach (or at least made in two previous models I've seen).
The trick is finding companies that are minimally decent.
There's no need to install overt spyware once caught the first time: It's easy to hide a backdoor in bundleware or a driver (whether proprietary or open source) to say, allow a well crafted network packet to pwn your machine while maintaining plausible deniability that it wasn't inserted on purpose. Like it or not you need to trust your vendors.
I take my chances with a US owned company, because even with a free press and whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, the US has not been caught doing mass scale theft of commercial information to give to private companies with the goal of saving them R&D costs to be internationally competitive.
Even an Excel spreadsheet showing the financial forecasts of a 10 person company is very sensitive information. It can be used to craft compelling buyout offers.
If the conversation between the CEO and the CFO of a 10 person company are discussing a Chinese buyout offer and are using a communications platform owned by China (whether a Motorola smartphone, a Huawei network router, or Zoom) the government of China has shown it is very interested the conversation is taking place, very interested in the contents of the conversation, and is willing to give the contents of its state espionage to its private companies to better compete.
Besides, the Thinkpad line was never affected.
It seems like the T480s is more similar to the Latitude line than the XPS line.
There are two issues that seem like there should be a fix for but I can't find:
* Having a left and right side of the trackpad. I would prefer to disable that and just use two fingers to right-click anywhere on the track pad.
* Cursor doesn't disappear when typing. I'm some apps it does and in others it doesn't. I would prefer it do it all the time.
My biggest complaint is the poor quality of the speakers.
I also suspect that the Killer adapter was the source of some bluescreens I got, usually after sleep. After some driver updates it has disappeared.
The Latitude 7390 is a bit smaller than the T480s (13 vs 14 inches).
If the latitude 7390 had the trackpoint, i would prefer that to a thinkpad.