Test of Dell G3 15 (2019)
Our verdict The Dell G3 15 is a great revamp of an inexpensive gaming laptop, now with great performance and good gaming utilities, but it still has a screen...
04/01/2022
Our Verdict
The Dell G3 15 is a great revamp of a cheap gaming laptop, now with great performance and good gaming utilities, but it still has a lackluster screen.
For
Overall performance and solid graphics
Good battery life
Great gaming software
Versus
Dull display
Today's best Dell G3 15 (2019) deals
$956.51
on Amazon
Dell's cheapest gaming laptop is back and better than ever. For $799, the G3 15 offers solid performance with its 9th Gen Core i5 processor and GTX 1650 GPU backed by the full power of the Alienware Command Center. Combine that with great battery life and you have one badass gaming machine. However, the relatively affordable price of the G3 comes at the price of a relatively lackluster 15.6-inch screen. Still, the G3 15 is our overall top pick on our page.
best cheap gaming laptops under $1000
. And he won a place on our page
best gaming laptops
.
Dell G3 15 pricing and configuration options
The G3 15 I tested is currently priced at $799 (originally $948) and features an Intel Core i5-9300H processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU with 4GB of VRAM, 8 GB of RAM, a 128 GB SSD and a 1 TB 5400 rpm hard drive. In terms of value, the Dell G3 15 is one of the
best cheap gaming laptops
.
(Image credit: Laptop Mag)
If you upgrade to the base model, which is also currently $799 (originally $848), you'll upgrade to a GTX 1050 GPU and lose the SSD. If you're looking to max out performance, you can get the model for $1,175 (originally $1,398) and it'll come with a Core i7-9750H CPU, GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q GPU, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB. SSD.
If the G3 15 isn't quite your speed, consider checking out our roundup of
best gaming laptops
as well as our< /p>
gaming laptop buying guide
.
Design
The G3 15 sports a simple matte black plastic design with a hint of race car aesthetics. Its hood has a blue Dell logo stamped in the center, and the left and right sides of it have a nice curve that continues to the hinge, which also curves like a spoiler does on a car. The hinge itself is glossy black with a G3 logo on it, and it surrounds the grilles which feature a baby blue accent, and that accent goes beyond the grilles and surrounds the entire system.
(Image credit: Laptop Mag)
Meanwhile, the system's interior screams cheap gaming, thanks to blue font on the keyboard and blue accents around the touchpad (not to mention the blue backlighting of the keys). The bezels on the screen, especially the bottom one, could use some trim, but they're slimmer than the previous one
Dell G3 15 (2018)
).
However, I was concerned when I first opened the lid and was greeted by a cracking sound followed by a slight bend in the keyboard. I reached out to Dell for comment and a rep commented that the hinge torque may have been too tight and will likely loosen over time, so that shouldn't be a big concern. Just in case, we've requested another model, and we're waiting for it to arrive to confirm that this isn't an issue on multiple systems.
MORE:
Best Dell and Alienware Laptops
At 5.4 pounds and 14.4 x 10.0 x 0.85 inches, the G5 15 is a decently thin laptop
15 inches
, and although it may be lighter, it is not as heavy as competing models. His brother
Dell G5 15 SE
weighs 5.6 pounds and 14.3 x 10.8 x 1 inches, while the
Acer Nitro 5
< p> weighs 5.7 pounds and measures 15.9 x 11 x 1.1 inches.Ports
Like many gaming laptops, the G5 15 doesn't disappoint when it comes to ports.
(Image credit: Laptop Mag)
The left side can contain a power jack, a DisplayPort USB Type-C port, an HDMI 2.0 port, a USB 3.1 port, an RJ45 Ethernet port and a headphone jack.
(Image credit: Laptop Mag)
Meanwhile, the right side sports a Noble lock slot, two USB 2.0 ports and an SD card slot.
Screen
The G3 15's 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 screen is super lackluster, which isn't uncommon for a budget gaming laptop. However, its competitors' screens fared much better in our tests.
In the latest Charlie's Angels movie trailer, a blue muscle car with a decal of orange and red flames encompassing it didn't quite explode. the G3 15's screen. In the night shot of one of the cities, I could barely make out the details of the buildings because it was so dark. However, Patrick Stewart's suit was sharp enough to reveal the seams that held the sleeves of his jacket together.
(Image credit: Laptop Mag)
I had a similar experience playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The vast greenery that surrounded a South American village seemed muted, and the colorful houses were equally dull. When I was diving underwater, it was difficult to make out the details of the rocks around me. But, the hair on Lara's head was more detailed than ever on the G3 15's screen.
According to our colorimeter, the G3 15's panel covered a measly 63% of the sRGB color gamut, below the 71% average for budget gaming laptops. The G5 15 SE and Nitro 5 both hit triple digits, covering a much better 154% and 103% respectively.
MORE:
Laptops with the best display brightness< /p>
Registering 272 nits of brightness on our light meter, the G3 15 exceeded the 264 nits category average and managed to stay above the G5 15 SE (270 nits), while being narrowly beaten by the Nitro 5 (275 nits) nits).
Dell G3 15 gaming laptop review: The taste of Alienware on a budget https://t.co/uUTbhvkpeF #Iwork4Dell https://t.co/KUTIUIP7Yr
— Jo Worf Sun Oct 27 07:30:15 +0000 2019
Keyboard and touchpad
Although the G3 15 has a typical cheap gaming laptop keyboard aesthetic, the keys are relatively comfortable to type on, if a bit small.< /p>
(Image credit: Laptop Mag)
I typed 71 words per minute on the 10FastFingers.com typing test, which is just above my average of 70 words per minute. Overall, the G3 15's keyboard isn't bad for gaming, but it's not very satisfying either.
The 4.2 x 3.2-inch touchpad is matte and a little hard to click, but that's not the case. far from its predecessor. The touchpad has Windows Precision drivers, so when I used Windows 10 gestures like two-finger scrolling and three-finger tabbing, it was responsive.
(Image credit: Laptop Mag)
While swimming in a lake in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the splashes I created were a bit sharp but still relatively natural. Lara's voice sounded crisp and clear after I made some finicky tweaks to the Nahimic audio settings in the Alienware Command Center (more on that below). When I shot my arrow into innocent rock, the thick snap of the bowstring was satisfying, as there was just enough bass.
The Alienware Command Center offers Nahimic's audio software, which allows me to tweak the sound to add some bass and reduce sharpness. It offers a comprehensive equalizer and several presets including Movie and Music. In these presets, you can use different audio effects like Bass Boost and Treble Enhancer to customize the sound.
MORE:
How to Enable Spatial Sound in Windows 10
For Shadow of the Tomb Raider, I set the preset to Role Play, but turned off the Reverb and turned down the Treble Enhancer and Voice Clarity. Then I turned up the Bass Boost to 10 to get a more balanced sound. I did the same for the music preset while listening to music.
Games, graphics and VR
A cheap gaming laptop doesn't have to have cheap components. The G3 15 packs an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU with 4GB of VRAM, which blasted through Middle-earth: Shadow of War at 44fps as I leapt off a tall building and crashed into a wave of rocks. orcs below. For people who have trouble changing performance settings, Dell has added an unobtrusive G key which, when depressed, will activate high performance mode (speeds up the CPU and GPU while blasting the fans).
(Image credit: Laptop Mag)
On the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark (Very High, 1080p), the G3 15 scored 30 consecutive fps, matching the Nitro 5 (GTX 1650 GPU) and climbing over the Cheap Gaming Laptop Average at 27 fps . However, with the same GPU, the G5 15 SE achieved 37 fps.
The G3 15 hit 62 fps on the Hitman benchmark (Ultra, 1080p), topping the category average of 54 fps. It topped the Nitro 5 (56 fps), but still couldn't top the G5 15 SE (85 fps).
On the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark (very high, 1080p), the G3 15 managed 38 fps, which again beats the budget gaming laptop average (34 fps), but trails the G5 15 SE and Nitro 5, both of which achieved 40 fps.
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Best and Worst Laptop Gaming Brands
Despite this, the G3 15 came out on top (sort of) in the SteamVR benchmark, with a score of 5.8 out of 11, beating the category average (5.3) and the G5 15 SE (5. 6) while attaching the Nitro 5.
Performance
Under the hood of the G3 15 is an Intel Core i5-9300H processor with 8GB of RAM that seamlessly juggles 40 Google Chrome Tabs and five 1080p YouTube videos while Shadow of War was running in the background.
On the Geekbench 4.3 overall performance test, the G3 15 scored 16,650, beating the 15,566 budget gaming laptop average. With the same processor, the Nitro 5 (14432) is far from the G3 15, while the G5 15 SE (16722) does a little better.
The G3 15 transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 14 minutes and 1 second on our HandBrake benchmark, completing it faster than the 14:28 category average as well as the G5 15 SE (14:31) and Nitro 5 (15 :33).
Dell's 128GB SSD copied 4.97GB of data in 17 seconds, or 299 megabytes per second, just a few megabytes less than the budget gaming laptop average (307 Mbps). The G5 15 SE's 256GB (130MB/s) SSD was painfully slow, while the Nitro 5's 512GB (536MB/s) SSD was relatively fast.
Battery life
For a gaming laptop, the G3 15's battery life is pretty impressive. After surfing the web continuously over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, the G3 15 lasted 6 hours and 41 minutes, beating the budget gaming laptop average of 5:27. Dell's laptop outlasted the Nitro 5 (4:22) but outlasted its sibling, the G5 15 SE (6:53).
webcam
Dell's 720p shooter isn't going to do you any favors if you decide to start streaming. During testing, my face was blurry and I couldn't make out any sharp details. The lights above me blew the ceiling, but at the very least the webcam accurately picked up the red color of my sweater.
(Image credit: Laptop Mag)
Heat
p>The G3 15 got hotter than our comfort thresholds, but it never got too hot to use—just warm. However, the fans can get a bit noisy in high performance mode. After playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider for 15 minutes, the underside measured 115 degrees Fahrenheit, exceeding our comfort threshold of 95 degrees. The center of the keyboard and touchpad reach 107 and 81 degrees respectively. The hottest the machine got was 125 degrees on the bottom left vent.
(Image credit: Laptop Mag)
On our normal test, streaming a 15-minute 1080p video, the underside reached 98 degrees, while the keyboard reached 91 degrees and the touchpad measured 81 degrees.
Software and warranty
The best software for this machine is Alienware Command Center. You can add and launch games from the Command Center library, and you can also customize your performance for each game. You can monitor CPU, GPU, and RAM temperature and usage while being able to customize the thermal profiles (fans) in order to adjust them accordingly. The app has power management settings and a full range of Nahimic audio settings (including surround sound settings) as mentioned earlier.
Beyond that, there's a plethora of Dell software, including Dell Mobile Connect (make calls, send texts and mirror screen from your phone), Dell Customer Connect (dedicated app for providing surveys), Dell Digital Delivery (a library of your software purchases from Dell), Dell Power Manager (monitors battery health and thermal management), and Dell Update (updates Dell applications and BIOS).
MORE:
Sloppy security software exposes Dell laptops to hackers
There are also Windows 10 bloatware, including Farm Heroes Saga, Candy Crush Friends Saga, and Hulu.
See how Dell performs during our
Technical Support Showdown
,
Best and Worst Laptop Brands
classification and
Best and Worst Gaming Laptop Brands
.
Summary
The G3 15 is a great refresh of an already impressive, affordable blue gaming laptop. It has solid performance paired with great gaming utility in addition to impressive battery life for a gaming laptop. It does have a super dull screen though.
If you still want a cheap gaming laptop but don't want to sacrifice the screen, go for the
Dell G5 15SE< /p>
($1.068). This model offers the same excellent performance and slightly longer battery life as well as a much better display.
But overall, the G3 15 is the cheap gaming laptop to get if you're on a tight budget. p>
Rami Tabari
Rami Tabari is an editor for Laptop Mag. It reviews all shapes and forms of a laptop as well as all sorts of cool tech. You can find him sitting at his desk surrounded by the dream of a laptop hoarder, and when he heads towards civilization, you can catch him watching some really bad anime or playing some kind of game. painfully difficult. He's the best in every game and he just doesn't lose. That's why you'll sometimes see his signature attached to the latest Souls-like challenge.