Dell announced on Tuesday its Latitude 7285 laptop, which the company says is the world's first laptop that can charge wirelessly.

To work, you'd need the Latitude 7825's wireless charging keyboard, as well as the wireless charging mat, which are both sold separately in a combo for $550 on top of the Latitude 7825's base $1,200 price tag.

It's an identical concept to wireless charging smartphones, where you place a smartphone onto a wireless charging mat or dock. With that in mind, the benefits of a wirelessly charging laptops aren't hugely significant, and it's more of a convenience at this stage. You still need to charge the laptop wherever the wireless charging mat is located.

Wireless charging also means you don't need to fumble around for a charging cable, and you can keep the charging cable out of sight. The wireless charging mat, however, would still need to be connected via cable to a power outlet. 

Dell says that the wireless charging mat isn't designed to be used on a metal surface, as the wireless charging technology it uses involves magnetism. If you want to use the wireless charging mat on a metal surface, you'd have to place it two inches up on a non-metallic stand. 

Apart from its wireless charging feature, Dell's new Latitude 7285 is a 2-in-1 detachable laptop similar to Microsoft's Surface Pro laptops. 

Unfortunately, like the Microsoft Surface Pro, you'd have to buy even the basic, non-wireless charging keyboard separately for $250. It comes with a 12-inch display, a Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 12GB of fast SSD storage.

Dell's wirelessly charging Latitude 7825 isn't quite the wireless future we're waiting for, but it's certainly a step in that direction.

Source: TechInsider