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At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Strong multicore CPU performance Excellent game performance for the price Attractive motion performance with 360Hz panel Lots of USB-A connectivity Cons Thick and heavy Short battery life Mediocre keyboard and small touchpad One USB-C port, no Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 Our Verdict The “retro-inspired” Dell G15 Gaming Laptop packs a punch in games, but comes with plenty of trade-offs. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Dell G15 New Refurbished Retailer Price Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Dell G15 5530 15-inch – Core i7-13650HX – 16GB 1000GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 QWERTY – English $1342.15 View Deal Price comparison from Backmarket Dell’s G-Series of gaming peripherals have evolved into a legitimate budget option over the past few years, and the Dell G2724D is currently our favorite budget gaming monitor. The laptops also have a strong focus on value, and the Dell G15 takes that to an extreme. Thick, ponderous, and undeniably quick, the G15 will appeal to gamers who want to wring every possible FPS from their budget.  Further reading: Best gaming laptops 2024: What to look for and highest-rated models Dell G15: Specs and features The Dell G15 I tested had an older Intel Core i7-13650HX processor. It’s a powerful chip for multithreaded workloads, however, with 14 cores and 20 threads. It’s a similar story with the GPU; the Nvidia RTX 4060 isn’t a heartstopper, but the version found in the Dell G15 has a hearty maximum graphics power of 140 watts. Model number: 5530 CPU: Intel Core i7-13650HX Memory: 16GB DDR5 Graphics/GPU: Nvidia RTX 4060 mobile NPU: None Display: 15.6-inch 16:9 360Hz 1080p IPS  Storage: 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 solid state storage Webcam: 720p webcam, single array microphone Connectivity: 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 with DisplayPort Alternate Mode, 3x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x Gigabit Ethernet (RJ45), 1x 3.5mm combo audio Networking: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 Biometrics: None  Battery capacity: 86 watt-hours Dimensions: 14.07 x 10.80 x 1.06 inches Weight: 6.19 pounds MSRP: $1,199.99 MSRP  Dell also shipped the G15 Gaming Laptop I reviewed with a 360Hz panel, which is an unusually high refresh rate for a budget laptop. This option is only available by customizing the laptop configuration and is currently out of stock. The model I tested rang up at about $1,200, but entry-level versions start at $700 (with an Intel Core i5 chip and RTX 4050). Shoppers looking for the best value should consider a pre-configured model. Going that route can land you an Intel Core i9-13900HX, RTX 4060, 165Hz 1080p display, and 32GB of RAM for $1,000. The Dell G15 Gaming Laptop is a laptop built for gaming and it performs that mission admirably. Dell G15: Design and build quality IDG / Matthew Smith Dell’s marketing department took a clever approach with the G15 gaming laptop. They describe it as retro, which is certainly an interesting way to frame it. What Dell means by “retro” is that the laptop looks like it could’ve been sold any time in the last 10 or even 20 years.  There are benefits to this approach. While the laptop is primarily constructed from matte black plastic, the thick, angular design feels classic. It also provides a good amount of space for internal cooling which, as I’ll highlight in a moment, helps the laptop achieve solid performance results.   However, the retro design contributes to the laptop’s bulk. At over an inch thick, and weighing just over six pounds, the G15 is on the heavier side. In practical terms, that makes the G15 more of a desktop replacement than a laptop you’d want to carry around daily—though I suppose you could make it work with a large, well-padded backpack.  While the Dell G15 looks retro, its build quality is modern. There’s minimal flex in the chassis, even when lifting the laptop from a corner or edge, and the display lid allows only slight flex when opening or closing. Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t a MacBook Pro. But it’s sturdy for a budget gaming laptop. Dell G15: Keyboard, trackpad IDG / Matthew Smith The Dell G15 gaming laptop’s size accommodates a keyboard with a numpad, but it doesn’t fully utilize the available space. While the numpad keys are nearly as large as the main alphanumeric keys, other keys feel undersized. The left-side Tab, Caps Lock, and Shift keys get the worst of it. Key travel is decent, but the typing feel is vague and springy. It’s usable but doesn’t stand out from the crowd. Keyboard backlighting is included but available in just one color: orange. I like the shade of orange, as it reinforces the laptop’s retro vibe. However, some competitors beat the Dell G15 by providing single-zone or multiple-zone color customization: the Gigabyte G6X and Acer Nitro 14 are two examples.   The Dell G15’s touchpad is a major drawback. At just 4 inches wide and slightly over 2 inches deep, it’s extremely small for a laptop sold in 2024. Blame the large speaker grille above the keyboard, which pushes the keyboard down and limits touchpad space. Dell seems to intend the laptop to be used with an external mouse—and perhaps keyboard—which reinforces its role as a desktop replacement laptop. Dell G15: Display, audio IDG / Matthew Smith Entry-level configurations of the Dell G15 Gaming Laptop have basic 120Hz 1080p IPS display, but the unit I reviewed had an upgraded 360Hz 1080p IPS panel with NVIDIA G-Sync support.  A 360Hz refresh rate is overkill for a laptop in this price range (most games won’t achieve frame rates high enough to fully utilize it), though it can deliver smooth motion in older e-sports titles like League of Legends. For most gamers, however, I recommend Dell’s middle option: a 1080p 165Hz G-Sync display that offers a better balance of performance and value. Refresh rate aside, the display is otherwise average. 1920×1080 resolution looks sharp on the 15.6-inch screen but doesn’t stand out compared to higher-resolution panels. It’s an IPS display, too, which lacks the contrast and vibrance of OLED. Still, it performs well in bright, colorful games like Overwatch, League of Legends, and Valorant—and OLED isn’t typically an option at this price point.  The massive speaker grill above the keyboard hints at great audio performance, but the audio system doesn’t live up to that promise. Volume is high at maximum, but the speakers lack bass and begin to sound harsh and muddy as the action heats up. They’re ok for games that lean less on audio presentation, like Cities: Skylines II, but you’ll want headphones for more immersive titles.  Dell G15: Webcam, microphone, biometrics The Dell G15 Gaming Laptop cuts corners with its webcam and microphone. It has a simple 720p webcam and a single-array microphone. Video quality is rather soft, and the microphone picks up spoken audio with a hollow, compressed sound. It’s passable for video calls on Zoom, I guess, but most modern laptops offer better video and audio recording.  Biometrics aren’t included, either. You’ll be logging in to the Dell G15 with a password or PIN.  Dell G15: Connectivity IDG / Matthew Smith The Dell G15 Gaming Laptop’s connectivity mirrors its retro design. It features three USB-A 3.1 ports, one USB-C port that supports DisplayPort Alternate Mode (but lacks power delivery), HDMI 2.1, Gigabit Ethernet, and a 3.5mm audio jack.  If you rely on USB-A peripherals or prefer wired Ethernet, this configuration is solid. However, if you favor USB-C, the laptop is less appealing, especially since the USB-C port only supports USB 3.2 Gen 2, falling short of newer USB 4.0 and Thunderbolt standards for data rates. Wireless connectivity also lags. The laptop supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, which are serviceable but outdated, with Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 now available. While Wi-Fi 6 is still sufficient for most users and may match your current router’s capabilities, its limitations could become more noticeable over time as faster standards become more widely adopted.  Dell G15: Performance The Dell Inspiron G15 Gaming Laptop sticks with Intel’s older 13th-Gen Core processors. Entry-level configurations have the Core i5-13450HX, while top-tier variants have the Core i9-13900HX. However, the model I reviewed landed in the middle with Intel’s Core i7-13650HX (which has 14 cores and 20 threads). It was supported by 16GB of memory and a 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 solid state drive.  IDG / Matthew Smith First up is PCMark 10, a general system benchmark that requires a decent CPU and acceptable GPU to reach its best results. The Dell G15 has both, so it achieved a respectable score of 7,337. That’s in line with the competition; not much better and not much worse.  That said, 7,337 is quite a good score for a laptop overall and it indicates the Dell G15 delivers a lot of performance for the price.  IDG / Matthew Smith Next up is Cinebench R23, a heavily multithreaded benchmark with a modest duration. Here the Dell G15 posted another respectable score of 16,913. That’s weaker than the Gigabyte G6X, which had the same processor and is sold at a similar price.  On the other hand, however, the Dell G15 easily defeated price-competitive laptops with weaker processors, like the HP Victus 15 with an Intel Core i7-12650H. IDG / Matthew Smith Handbrake is a long duration, heavily multithread benchmark that involves real-world encoding of a feature length film. The Dell G15 handles the task admirably, as it produced the best score among this competitive set. That suggests the laptop’s large power brick and thick chassis can sustain its performance over longer workloads. While the Intel Core i7-13650HX delivers good processor performance for the price, gamers will be more interested in the Nvidia RTX 4060 mobile. Though it sits low in Nvidia’s product stack, the configuration used by Dell’s G15 can tap into a maximum graphics power of up to 140 watts. Because of that, the Dell G15 can deliver performance similar to some RTX 4070 laptops.  IDG / Matthew Smith 3DMark puts the Dell G15 off to a great start with a score of 10,579. That’s the highest from this competitive set, and it even defeats the Nvidia RTX 4070-powered MSI Stealth 16 AI. The MSI is a thinner laptop, to be fair—but it goes to show how much of a difference exists between the quickest and slowest iterations of any given Nvidia RTX mobile graphics hardware. IDG / Matthew Smith It’s a similar story in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, an older 3D title that’s not too demanding on modern hardware. The Gigabyte G6X, which also had an Nvidia RTX 4060, was able to tie the Dell G15. However, Dell’s performance otherwise leads the competition. IDG / Matthew Smith Metro Exodus gives the MSI Stealth 16 AI a chance to catch up, but the Dell G15 is once again a leader in this arena. A result of 42 frames per second might seem low, but the Extreme preset is notoriously demanding in this title. This shows the Dell G15 can handle some very visually demanding titles so long as you keep your framerate target at 30 FPS or better. I finished things off with Cyberpunk 2077. The Dell G15 averaged 75 frames per second at 1080p resolution, Ultra detail, and with DLSS/FSR/XeSS turned off. That’s a highly playable result and again trades blows with the MSI Stealth 16 AI, which averaged 73 FPS.  Increasing Cyberpunk 2077’s settings to the Overdrive Ray-Traced preset, however, tanked the Dell G15’s performance to just 20 FPS. That’s quite a bit lower than the MSI Stealth 16 AI, which averaged 32 FPS. The Dell G15 does have its limits, and raytracing finds them.  Still, the Dell G15 Gaming Laptop is an impressive performer for the price. And the model I tested isn’t even the best value: if you ditch the 360Hz display for a 165Hz panel, you can upgrade the processor to an Intel Core i9-13900HX and spend $200 less. Dell G15: Battery life Dell stuff’s a sizeable 86 watt-hour battery into the G15 Gaming Laptop. It has its work cut out for it, however. The laptop has a powerful CPU and GPU, but lacks switchable graphics, which means the power-hungry GPU is always on tap. IDG / Matthew Smith The results are predictable. The Dell G15 fell short of reaching five hours in our standard battery test, which loops a 4K file of the short film Tears of Steel. That’s not unusual for a gaming laptop, but it’s not great, and it suggests the laptop will struggle to last more than a few hours on charge. My real-world use certainly reflected that reality. Spending a couple hours writing at a coffee shop caused the battery to nose-dive by 40 percent. I expect that most people will see about four to five hours even in basic productivity and web browsing tasks. Short battery life means you’ll feel the need to pack the power adapter—and it’s huge. The 330-watt adapter weighs several pounds and measures over an inch thick. Carrying both the laptop and adapter will add noticeable heft to even a large, well-padded backpack.  Dell G15: Conclusion The Dell G15 Gaming Laptop is a laptop built for gaming and it performs that mission admirably. It has enough GPU grunt to play demanding modern games, like Cyberpunk 2077, above 30 FPS at medium or high detail settings. Older titles, meanwhile, will easily exceed 60 FPS. However, the Dell G15’s laser focus on this goal makes it a bad fit for other tasks. It’s thick, heavy, and suffers short battery life. The display is crisp in motion but otherwise mediocre, the keyboard is so-so, and the touchpad is small. Wi-Fi connectivity is stuck on Wi-Fi 6 and there’s only one USB-C port. These downsides make it harder to recommend the Dell G15. Still, gamers who want a desktop replacement laptop with solid bang for the buck should consider it. What the G15 lacks in versatility, it makes up for in performance. Read...

It seems like every new laptop lately is a “Windows Copilot+ PC.” With Intel’s Lunar Lake and AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 CPUs, AI-infused Copilot+ PCs have finally expanded into traditional x86 laptop territory. They aren’t limited to just Arm-powered laptops with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite hardware anymore. That’s good news for everyone. Along with speedy neural processing units (NPU) that are capable of at least 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS), Copilot+ PCs must have at least 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. If that’s the new baseline for Windows PCs, that’s awesome. It will benefit you even if you don’t care about AI. So, your next laptop might just be a Copilot+ PC. But if you ask me, Copilot+ PCs still leave a lot to be desired. While those min specs are great, there’s more to a great laptop experience than hardware. If Microsoft wants people to truly care about Copilot+ PCs, there are some serious improvements that need to happen sooner than later. Related: The best laptops for every need and budget Windows needs to integrate AI better Chris Hoffman / IDG Copilot+ PCs should feel more revolutionary than they currently do. At launch, we got a collection of small little features in apps like Paint and Photos, some webcam effects, and a few other goodies. It’s just not a transformative AI experience the way those Copilot+ PC ads promised. When I hear about transformative AI integration in Windows, I imagine Windows rewriting text in any application, or summarizing anything that’s on the screen, or noticing that I’m performing a repetitive task and offering to automate it for me. What if Windows AI truly understood what you were doing on your PC and could help you get those things done? That would be interesting, but it isn’t happening on Copilot+ PCs. Privacy and choice need to be a priority Microsoft’s Windows Recall feature was supposed to be the impressive new thing that sold everyone on the power of AI PCs, and it was the centerpiece of Microsoft’s original Copilot+ PC announcement back in May 2024. Recall takes screenshots of your PC activity every five seconds, then lets you search through it all using plain-language AI queries. Of course, it was immediately controversial. While Microsoft insisted it was private and secure, there was severe backlash over privacy concerns — so severe, in fact, that the company backed down, pulled the feature, and promised to make changes to address criticism. As we reach the end of 2024, Recall continues to see delay after delay. For people to trust Copilot+ PCs, privacy, control, and user choice needs to be at the forefront. Recall was actually designed in a more private way than the controversy implied — for example, those snapshots are stored entirely on your computer and nothing is ever shared with Microsoft. But concerns are still concerns, and it’s clear that Microsoft didn’t take those concerns seriously when originally designing Recall. Future Copilot+ PC features need to be designed in a way that garners user trust from day one, without repeated delays while the company scrambles to rework features after the fact. It’s just a bad look. Copilot needs to work offline (somehow) Chris Hoffman / IDG The name “Copilot+ PC” implies that you’ll be able to do more with Microsoft’s Copilot AI chatbot assistant on such PCs. Unfortunately, that isn’t true at all. While these PCs do have a Copilot key on the keyboard, that key also exists on many non-Copilot+ PCs, too. You don’t actually get any bonus Copilot features. Want Copilot AI features in Microsoft Word and other Office apps? You won’t get it with a Copilot+ PC. Instead, you need to shell out for a Copilot Pro subscription. Not the clearest naming scheme! To deliver on the promise of the name, Microsoft should make Copilot work offline in some form, perhaps on Copilot+ PCs to provide speedy AI answers even without an internet connection — and without sending any data to Microsoft, which would be a big boon for businesses that want to maintain control over internal data. Ideally, Copilot should still be able to access Microsoft’s cloud servers for more information when necessary. But all of this really just points to an even bigger problem: Copilot itself might need a big rethink. In my experience, the new Copilot is more focused on friendly chatter than real productivity. I don’t want my laptop to be my friend — I want it to be a productivity tool! AI image features need to work offline, too The generative image features on Copilot+ PCs are a little sad. For example, Cocreator in Paint can “upgrade” something you draw, and you can also generate images in Photos. But that’s… it? On a Copilot+ PC, these features use the system’s NPU to perform AI image generation. But they require you sign in with a Microsoft account, and they send your generated image to Microsoft’s servers for safety checks before showing them to you. In other words, you have to be connected to the internet — they don’t work offline. What’s the point of using the system’s NPU to do image generation locally if it doesn’t work offline, requires a Microsoft account, and sends the image to Microsoft’s servers? You might as well just use cloud-based AI image solutions that do all the work on a cloud server somewhere. Image generation models need to catch up Chris Hoffman / IDG The argument for using cloud-based AI image tools is especially strong because the image generation models on Copilot+ PCs just aren’t great. Yes, they technically work… but they’re far behind the latest AI image generation models you can find elsewhere. Cloud-powered models like OpenAI’s DALL-E 3, which is used by Copilot and Microsoft Designer, generate much higher-quality images. Copilot+ PCs need to be more competitive with the latest cloud-powered AI image models that can be used on any device, even phones. Otherwise, what’s the point? AI features should support NPUs and GPUs Gaming PCs are being left out of the Copilot+ PC push. That’s a shame because a powerful GPU isn’t just for gaming — it’s also the best way to run local AI models with the fastest possible performance. Indeed, while NPUs are getting all the hype, GPUs are still the fastest way to run many local AI applications that do the work on your own PC. NPUs are useful for AI tasks because they provide better performance than a CPU and less energy usage than a GPU. And with Copilot+ PCs being all about long battery life and power efficiency, it’s clear why NPUs are in the spotlight. But what about when battery life and power efficiency aren’t so important? GPUs are still the best for that, and that means gaming laptops shouldn’t be overlooked for AI tasks. When designing Copilot+ PCs and Windows AI features, Microsoft has ignored GPUs — if your computer doesn’t have an NPU, it simply can’t use those AI features. That’s a mistake. Related: The best gaming laptops that perform well Desktop PCs and gaming laptops should also be Copilot+ PCs Orva Studio / Unsplash Copilot+ PCs are currently limited to thin-and-light laptops. Do you have a desktop? Too bad. It can’t yet be a Copilot+ PC. Do you want a gaming laptop with a powerful CPU like Intel’s Raptor Lake refresh? Also too bad. That can’t be a Copilot+ PC either. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite hardware is only for laptops, and the company canceled its planned Snapdragon mini PC. Intel’s Arrow Lake Core Ultra desktop chips include an NPU that’s too slow for Copilot+ PC features, and AMD’s Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs don’t have an NPU at all. Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm need to release processors for other form factors, not just the thin-and-light laptops that are in vogue. Of course, this will likely happen in time: Qualcomm has said it plans to release its Snapdragon X processors for PC desktops, and Intel and AMD will surely bring faster NPUs to desktops in the future, too. Apps need to use that Copilot runtime Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC specification isn’t just about getting new AI features built into Windows. It’s about establishing an entirely new type of app that requires AI-related hardware and a minimum hardware level for developers to target. When Microsoft first announced Copilot+ PCs, it also announced the Windows Copilot Runtime, which is a collection of AI models that are built directly into Windows. Windows applications can take advantage of these AI models… but only if you’re on a qualified Copilot+ PC. Some companies have told me about how their Windows applications can take advantage of NPUs for AI tasks, but I’ve yet to hear about a single application that uses the Windows Copilot Runtime for AI. If the industry wants to sell Copilot+ PCs for their unique features, Windows app devs will need to ship apps that take advantage of that Copilot Runtime. That’s a tall order, though. Most AI applications are being built in a cross-platform way using cloud-based AI processing so they can run on any platform, whether a Windows PC or a Chromebook or an Android phone. Microsoft will have to convince app developers to build AI features that work only on a certain subset of Windows 11 PCs — and without proper incentives, it’s unlikely for any to take them up on that. Bonus: The prices need to come down IDG One final but obvious point: Copilot+ PCs need to come down in price to achieve widespread adoption — and they do need to achieve widespread adoption if app developers are going to take them seriously enough to develop specialized software for them. If Copilot+ PCs stay as high-end niche products used only by PC enthusiasts, then they’re going to be easy to ignore. They won’t get the software they need to be interesting, and Microsoft won’t be moved to release interesting Windows features that only a few can use. Right now, we’re nearing the end of 2024 and it’s still hard to get a Copilot+ PC for much less than $1,000. You may be able to save a couple hundred bucks if you catch a Qualcomm Snapdragon X laptop on sale, otherwise you’re out of luck. That’s no surprise, though, as those laptops just came out (and Intel Lunar Lake and AMD Ryzen AI 300-powered laptops just started to trickle out at the end of 2024). We’re going to need to see the price come way down in the future so that people will happily buy Copilot+ PCs instead of getting last year’s laptops at half the price. A premium pricing strategy is a good way for hardware manufacturers to make money on their hardware, but a bad way to build an application platform. Fortunately, we’ve seen some first moves on this, like Qualcomm talking about a cheaper Snapdragon X Plus chip that’ll pave the way for $700 Copilot+ laptops. And, of course, if prices do drop, that’ll be good for everyone. Whether the AI features are useful or not, I look forward to more affordable laptops with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage as the minimum! Further reading: The best laptop deals (updated daily) Read...

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