Dell G7 15 Hands-On, First Impressions

Dell launched two of its G-series gaming line in the Philippines last week — the G3 15 and G7 15. We already shared our thoughts about the baby of the series here. Now, it’s time to look at the big brother, the G7.

Dell took a different route in designing the star of the series. While the G3 was stealthy and quite thin, the G7 is bulky and thick though it still looks relatively discreet. Don’t get us wrong, the laptop is not overly thick it just looks a lot bigger than the G3. The machine has two color options — Black and White. The white one looks particularly stealthy and unassuming.

This time around there are noticeable linings and curves on the laptop, making it look a little more aggressive. Especially around the exhaust, which looks like a jet engine. The device also lost that textured chassis as it was replaced with a sand-blasted body, which looks elegant and premium.

That added weight and bulk has its advantages though, like providing the G7 with a solid and sturdy body. Screen and keyboard flex was almost non-existent and the overall build quality of the laptop is superb.

The G7 has two display configurations, one in Full HD (1920 x 1080) and the other in 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) IPS. Both configs are 15.6-inch IPS panels. Like with the G3, these panels are stuck at 60Hz. The bezels are again a little too thick for our tastes but still acceptable.

Like the G3, the G7 also comes with a full-size chiclet-style keyboard with a dedicated Numpad. The backlighting and key color are still blue and the arrow keys are still bite-size. Likewise, key travel is short and tactile feedback is good so typing and gaming will be an enjoyable experience.

Even the trackpad is the same, it’s a Clickpad with noticeable left and right click dividers at the bottom and a blue accent.

The laptop has almost the same set of ports except for the addition of Thunderbolt 3 on all variants and the power button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner. That means we’re still getting three USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports, an HDMI 2.0 port, an SD card reader, an RJ45 Ethernet port, a combo audio port, and a Kensington.

There won’t be any huge jump in performance for the base model of the G7 compared to the G3 as the two have almost the same setup. That’s an 8th generation i5-8300H processor paired with Nvidia’s GTX 1050 GPU. The only main but helpful difference is that base the RAM for the G7 is 8GB instead of 4GB.

The real powerhouse is the i7 variant of the laptop with an 8th gen core i7-8750H and Nvidia GTX 1060 Max-Q. Although, it comes with a very steep price tag. Again with the base setup, light to moderate titles will be playable in high settings at the native resolution while heavier games will require a lower graphics settings or change in resolution.

Dell’s G-series created a lot of hype, hope, and dreams when they were announced a few months back. That’s because the series introduced gaming machines with respectable specs at a very affordable price point. Sadly, that’s not the case in the Philippines. While the G3 can arguably compete in its price segment, the G7 will probably have a harder time.

The only major advantage it has is the support for Thunderbolt 3 in all of its variants, something competitors don’t offer in most of their units. The sad truth is, a lot of other manufacturers offer devices with better performing internals for the price of the G7. Not to mention, the i7 variant of the machine with the 1060 Max-Q costs Php 99,990USD 1,704INR 144,446EUR 1,623CNY 12,409, which is an entirely different league already. Of course, there are other factors to gaming than just performance and that may be where the G7 can shine. Although for now, it’s looking a little bleak for the star of the G-series.

Dell G7 15 specifications

• 15-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) or 4k UHD (3840 x 2160) Matte IPS LED Display
• 8th Generation Intel Core i5-8300H 2.3GHz Processor
• 8th Generation Intel Core i7-8750H 2.2GHz Processor
• Nvidia GTX 1060 Max-Q 6GB (i7 Model)
• Nvidia GTX 1050 4GB (i5 Model)
• 16GB DDR4 2666Mhz (Max 32GB) (i7 Model)
• 8GB DDR4 2666Mhz (Max 32GB) (i5 Model)
• 256GB M.2 SSD (i7 Model)
• 1TB SSHD (i5 Model)
• 1TB HDD (i7 Model)
• WiFi 802.11ac 2×2 + Bluetooth 4.2
• 3x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A
• USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C Thunderbolt 3
• HDMI 2.0
• SD Media Card Reader
• Combo headphone/microphone jack
• RJ45 Ethernet port
• 56WHr Battery
• Windows 10
• 25mm x 398mm x 275mm
• Starting at 2.85kg