Dell G3 15 review

There has been a huge trend among the best gaming laptops over the last year or so: make them as thin and light as possible, while shoving in as much power as you can. And, if you have the cash, laptops like the Razer Blade and MSI GS65 Stealth are absolutely worth it.

For a lot of people, though, these options can get expensive. So, if you’re looking for a laptop that isn’t so expensive, where do you go? Well, budget options like the Dell G3 gaming laptop can deliver competent gaming performance at budget prices – just don’t expect too many bells and whistles.

For instance, you’re not going to get Thunderbolt 3 or Windows Hello on the Dell G3 gaming laptop, but with a Coffee Lake H-series processor, Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti graphics and a keyboard that’s too good to be true – is it worth the low price of admission?

Price and availability 

Like most laptops around right now, the Dell G3 gaming laptop is available in a wide range of configurations. Today, the US, UK and Australia all have different options available in a bunch of different prices.

In the US, the Dell G3 gaming laptop starts out at $749. This gets you an Intel Core i5-8300H, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB 5,400RPM hard drive and a GTX 1050 graphics card. If you want to go all out, you can get a GTX 1050 Ti, an Intel Core i7-8750H, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for $1,199.

Still, the configurations on offer are kind of awkward. You can pick up the same model we reviewed to the right, with a more powerful graphics card for $150 (about £110, AU$200) extra. That’s the model we’d recommend for anyone in the states.

Things are a bit odd in the UK: the entry model is about the same as the US version, only with Ubuntu Linux instead of Windows 10, priced at £748. You can upgrade to a model running Windows 10 for about £50 more. The UK model tops out with the configuration we ran here, but with a Core i7 8750H, and it can be yours for £949.

In Australia, you can pick up the exact configuration we reviewed here for AU$1,599 . Or, you can beef it up with a Core i7-8750H, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for AU$1,999 (about $1,475, £1,115).

The Dell G3 gaming laptop is a good deal, especially compared to some other budget gaming laptops. Just take a look at the $799 (£649, about AU$1,082) Asus TUF FX504 with a weaker GPU. The Dell G3 also compares favorably to the $999 (£749, AU$1,149) Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming. 

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Design 

Whenever you’re picking up a budget laptop, you’re going to be making concessions somewhere to make up for the lower price. With the Dell G3 15, the concessions are entirely in the build quality and the gigantic bezels.  

This laptop is entirely built of plastic, and while this is generally not a bad thing, there is a good amount of flex underneath the keyboard, and the unit we received had a warped section near the power button. Luckily, Dell’s warranty will cover any defects as long as you don’t cause them yourself. 

The device has good aesthetics, however, with a blue pinstripe design accentuated by the blue lighting on the keyboard. It’s not quite the same as some of the gold-trimmed designs of some high-end gaming notebooks, but you’re not going to need to hide it away in shame, either. 

And, while it’s not exactly what we would call ‘thin and light,’ it’s also not too bulky. It weighs in at 5.57 pounds (2.53kg) and measures in at 0.89  x 14.96 x 10.16 inches (H x W x D). You should be able to take it around with you wherever you go, but it might start weighing down on you for longer trips.

Then there’s the keyboard. There is no way that a keyboard this good should be on a laptop this cheap. The keys offer satisfying, deep travel and plenty of tactile feedback. The layout is top-notch as well, fitting a full-sized keyboard without having to resort to any weird key placements. We can type on this laptop for hours comfortably, which is rare in a laptop in this price range. 

The trackpad, however, is just OK. It does what it needs to do and is accurate enough that we didn’t really run into any actual problems while using it. The only issues are that it’s too small for a 15-inch laptop and it has this sort of textured surface that we didn’t really jive with – your mileage may vary. 

As for the screen, you’re looking at a 1,920 x 1,080 IPS display with a matte finish, so you can comfortably game in bright environments. That matte finish is especially important, though, because the screen doesn’t really get all that bright. In our time using this machine to play games and watch some YouTube, the display got us through everything we needed to do without any real complaints – other than the bezels.

Yes, even in 2018, when thin bezels are making their way onto practically every device under the sun, the Dell G3 15 looks a bit out of date with its massive bezels. Now, while they won’t really intrude on your day-to-day usage, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that the footprint of the laptop could have been significantly reduced by using smaller bezels. It’s kind of a nitpicky complaint but, from the manufacturers of the XPS 13, it’s just a bit of a shock.

• First reviewed June 2018