Pros Attractive low price 120Hz screen Full complement of ports Cons < p>Average processor performance Not everything
ProsAttractively low priced120Hz displayFull complement of portsConsAverage CPU performanceNot quite capable of 60fps gaming on high settings in...
06/01/2022
Advantages
Attractive price at low cost
120Hz screen
Full complement of ports
Disadvantages
< p>Average processor performanceNot quite able to play at 60fps on high settings in AAA titles
Only 256 GB of storage in the test configuration is restrictive for games
the
Dell G3 15
is the very definition of a
entry-level gaming laptop
: simple design, modest performance and a small price. It ups its game somewhat with a Full HD 120Hz display, which its GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics chip can exploit in online multiplayer games, but it can't really push AAA titles to 60 frames per second (fps) with higher settings. The small 256GB SSD in our test unit is restrictive for a games library, so we recommend increasing the capacity. All in all it's a competent machine, but its performance is rather ordinary, and you can find better values just below and above that price, mainly the
Acer Nitro 5
and the
MSI Bravo 15
.
Basic GeForce Gaming on a Budget
It's no surprise that this budget gaming laptop isn't too flashy in its aesthetics or fancy in its physical design. It's a simple but reasonably compact 15-inch system with a textured plastic finish on the lid and smooth plastic on the inside. The G3 15 won't win any design awards, but it won't offend, blends into any environment and is above all solid in construction.
As for portability, the chassis measures 0.85 by 14.4 by 10 inches (HWD) and 5.18 pounds. It's not what we'd call lightweight, for a gaming laptop or otherwise, but it's no backbreaker; it's portable enough to slip into a bag or backpack without becoming a burden, though that wouldn't be the
best choice
for a daily commute partner.
< p>For context, this weight is lighter than some inexpensive gaming laptops, like the Acer Nitro 5 (5.51 pounds), but heavier than others, like the MSI Bravo 15 ( 4.1 pounds). You usually have to pay more for ultra-thin and light systems (especially gaming laptops) like the Razer Blade 15 or MSI Stealth 15M, so that's reasonable for a budget machine. If you're really concerned about portability, there's also a new wave of 14-inch laptops out there, but they're a little beyond budget pricing.The rest of the build is just as basic. . The keyboard and touchpad are serviceable but ordinary. The keys have a bit of feedback, but the action is rather limp at the end of a press, and you can feel some flex on the keyboard. The touchpad is very plain, and it has a textured feel rather than the smooth glass finish of more high-end laptops, but it gets the job done.
Although the design of the system is simple, the screen certainly has game in listening. The 15.6-inch screen offers Full HD resolution and a
120Hz refresh rate
, a good combination for entry to mid-range games. Resolution is the modern standard and looks sharp, without being overly demanding on budget components (more on those in a moment). The refresh rate cap won't be hit in visually demanding single-player games on this laptop, but in simpler, faster-paced games like your favorite MOBAs and battle royales, you'll see higher frame rates.
Physical and wireless connections round out this build, starting with the USB 3.1 port, a USB Type-C port (with DisplayPort support), an HDMI port, and an Ethernet jack on the left flank. The latter is a particularly great plus for gaming, allowing you to get faster and more stable connections for gaming and game downloads, and isn't always found on cheaper laptops. There are two more USB ports on the right edge, next to the headphone jack and an SD card slot. The system supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth.
Components and performance tests
The components make or break a budget gaming laptop, so let's take a look under the hood. Our $783.99 model includes an Intel Core i5-10300H processor
, 8GB of memory, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti GPU, and a 256GB SSD. Ours is the base price, the starting unit, so there's no more price reduction to be had, but you can increase it decently. It will still be an entry-level laptop, but you can spec it with a Core i7 chip, up to a GTX 1660 Ti GPU, and double the RAM and storage for a few hundred dollars more.
8GB of memory isn't too surprising at this price, although 16GB would be ideal. A mere 256GB of storage for a gaming laptop really pushes it, as only a few cutting-edge AAA games and your personal files would quickly fill it up. Even during the benchmark software setup and a few test games, I had to remove some as I was going to make room for the next batch. Game installs are much larger than before and are often bloated with updates, so being limited to 256GB is limited on day one. I would recommend increasing the capacity to 512GB if you can afford it.
To see what these components can do, I put the G3 15 through our rigorous
benchmark test suite
Dell G3 15 Gaming Laptop review: Good news for gaming bargain hunters via @CNET https://t.co/FO8C9AaWnV #gseries… https://t.co/SqpNBfusOT
— Vadim Ismakaev Thu Jan 30 20:42:21 +0000 2020
and compared the results to the competition. Below are the scores, but first here's a table with the names and specs of the competitors so you can see what the G3 15 is up against.
Productivity, storage and media testing
< p>PCMark 10 and 8 are holistic performance suites developed by the PC benchmark specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). The PCMark 10 test we run simulates different real-world content creation and productivity workflows. We use it to gauge overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet manipulation, web browsing, and video conferencing. PCMark 8, on the other hand, has a storage subtest that we use to gauge system boot drive speed. Both tests give an exclusive numerical score; higher numbers are better.As these laptops are equipped to play demanding video games, even though they are budget systems, they all meet an acceptable performance baseline for day-to-day tasks. The G3 15 isn't the fastest machine I've ever used, with a few seconds of downtime here and there when launching a program or multitasking, but overall speed is good enough for a general use.
Next is Maxon's Cinebench R15 test, which is fully designed to use all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench emphasizes the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for CPU-intensive workloads.
Cinebench is often a good predictor of our Handbrake video editing trial, another hard, wired workout that's heavily CPU-dependent and scales well with cores and threads. In this document, we put a timer on the test systems while they transcode a standard 12-minute clip of 4K video (the open source Blender demo movie
Tears of Steel
) to a 1080p MP4 file. This is a timed test, and lower results are better.
We also run a custom Adobe Photoshop image editing benchmark test. Using an early 2018 version of the Creative Cloud version of Photoshop, we apply a series of 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG test image, timing each operation and adding up the total. As with the handbrake, lower times are better here.
The G3 15's decent (but not great) overall speed is again demonstrated on these tests. That's slower than the competition on two of these tests, though neither is exactly ready to punch through editing or media creation. The budget tier is not where you seek excellence with these workloads, but they
can
get away with it if you're willing to wait.
Graphics testing
3DMark measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, game-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. We run two different 3DMark subtests, Sky Diver and Fire Strike, which are suitable for different types of systems. Both are DirectX 11 benchmarks, but Sky Diver is more suited to mid-range PCs with integrated graphics, while Fire Strike is more demanding and allows high-end and gaming PCs to strut their stuff. The results are proprietary scores.
Next up is another synthetic test or gaming simulation, this time from Unigine Corp. Like 3DMark, the overlay test renders and pans through a detailed 3D scene and measures how well the system is doing. In this case, it's rendered in the eponymous Unigine engine, offering a different 3D workload for a second opinion on each laptop's graphical prowess.
The GTX 1650 Ti is very much an entry-level GPU, so it's no surprise we haven't seen any fireworks on raw 3D power. Overall, these systems boast moderate graphics capabilities, with the G5 15 (which is a bit more expensive than the others) leading the pack. You probably won't be using a laptop in this level for professional 3D work, just for gaming, so raw 3D muscle is less important in this context than game results. Let's continue on those.
Real-world gaming tests
Synthetic tests are useful for measuring general 3D aptitude, but full-featured video games are hard to beat for assessing gaming performance. Far Cry 5 and Rise of the Tomb Raider are both modern, high-fidelity titles with Built-in references that illustrate how a system handles real-world gameplay in various settings. We run them at 1080p resolution with the games' medium and best image quality presets (Normal and Ultra for Far Cry 5 under DirectX 11, Medium and Very High for Rise of the Tomb Raider under DirectX 12).
Of these two games, the G3 15 is on average the third or fourth best performer, which corresponds to the on-paper hierarchy of GPUs used. However, the Nitro 5 is cheaper and offers roughly the same performance (although its screen isn't high-refresh), so it's not the best result for the G3 15 in this head-to-head.
If you're an enthusiast, missing out on 60fps on max settings can be disappointing, but you can't necessarily expect that at this price range. The medium quality settings show that you can tune some bells and whistles to get better than 60 frames per second, which is an acceptable solution for a budget machine.
You might be wondering why you would want to pay for a 120Hz display, though, if the laptop can't push frame rates that high. The reason: the panel is not intended for these types of AAA games. As mentioned, high refresh screens are more suited to online multiplayer games, so I ran the in-game benchmark for Rainbow Six: Siege to see what the G3 15 is capable of.
The G3 15 averages 152 fps on the lowest preset and 114 fps on the highest preset (both manually set to 100 percent render resolution), making a clear case for the display 120Hz. Games like this will look smoother and give you a competitive edge as your screen updates more frequently.
Battery drain test
After fully charging the laptop, we put the machine into power saving mode (as opposed to balanced or high performance mode) when available and make a few other battery saving tweaks in preparation for our unplugged video disconnect test. (We also turn off Wi-Fi, putting the laptop into airplane mode.) In this test, we're looping a video: a locally stored 720p file of the same
Tears of Steel
short that we use in our Handbrake test—with screen brightness set to 50% and volume at 100% until the system shuts down.
Here we see a respectable, if unremarkable, result of battery life. The Nitro 5 is an outlier, while the others are clustered in the six to seven hour range. Six hours of battery life in the described scenario is good for a gaming laptop, but in case you didn't know, you won't be able to play games for that long without the charger. The game is draining the battery
a lot
faster than general use (word processing, web browsing, and even watching videos like our test), so you'll only be able to play two hours without a charger (and with reduced performance).
Even so, a long battery life makes a laptop a better buy for your on-the-go computing needs, not just for gaming at your desk.< /p>
An affordable mainstream player
The Dell G3 15 isn't remarkable in design or performance, but it's a competent Full HD gaming machine with a fast display at a great price. It is not the
best quality price report
, with the Nitro 5 pretty much the same performance for even less money, while the MSI Bravo 15 is our preferred choice under $1,000. If you like the look of the G3 15, you can configure it with a bit more storage and memory, which we recommend if you have the budget.