Dell G7 17 Gaming Laptop Review 2022

Dell g7 17 gaming laptop review: everything you need to know

It is important to know all the key features and aspects of the gaming laptop you are about to purchase. We have tried to list down every major component with extensive information.

Let’s discuss the key features of the Dell G7 17 gaming laptop;

Design, Dimension, & Weight

People are expecting the design of this gaming machine to be flashy, but that is not the case with the Dell G7 17.

You might find the outlook of the gaming laptop quite boring; however, you need to understand that not every gaming PC or laptop needs to shout that ‘I’m a gaming laptop’ from its look or impression.

Sadly, the entire chassis of the Dell G7 17 is made up of plastic. Well, you cannot expect that kind of quality in such a high-priced machine. Moreover, the entire chassis works as a magnet for fingerprints and smudge marks. You need to make sure that you have a napkin by your side before you start using your laptop.

You can find the Dell G7 17 in dark gray color with blue accents.

Moving on, one element which separates this gaming laptop’s identification is the horizontal stripes along its edges. Moreover, you will be able to see a Dell logo in blue accents on the top of the lid. It would have been amazing if the lid was not prone or vulnerable to fingerprints and smudge marks.

Once you open the lid, you can see the thin bezels around the screen. However, the bottom bezel is a bit thick when compared to the other bezels. It has a Dell logo imprint on it.

Furthermore, once you put your eyes on the deck of the gaming laptop, you will be able to see the shiny surface above the keyboard. It holds some important elements of the machine such as – G7 logo, and the power button which can serve as a fingerprint scanner also.

The fingerprint scanner is one of the most intelligent parts of this gaming laptop. It is truly one of the most accurate ones we have come across in the laptop industry. It becomes quite easy and convenient for logging on to Windows.

Moving onto the keyboard is another vital component of the gaming laptop. If the keyboard doesn’t function properly, it would become significantly difficult for the gamers to perform. However, Dell has been sensible enough to design the G7 17’s keyboard in supreme quality. The keys are not far from each other, and whenever you press any of them it generates a good clicky sound. It works as an adequate response or feedback for you.

Furthermore, the Dell G7 17’s keyboard is powered with RGB lighting. Mostly, the Alienware machines are settled with single-zone backlighting; however, that is not the case with Dell’s newest gaming machine. Alienware Command Center can be found in the machine to operate the lighting control.

The keys of the gaming laptop are not unnecessarily bigger. Dell has been smart enough to accommodate every key precisely. The arrow keys and the NumPad keys are relatively smaller in size. Nonetheless, there is no justification why Dell has placed these keys in a smaller size as there is ample room on the large chassis.

When you move your gaze beneath the keyboard, you will be able to see a right-sized touchpad. Once you press it or move your fingers on it, the touchpad starts responding. Although, the response rate is weak.

One major setback for the Dell G7 17 is the weight of the laptop. In this modern era, people are fond of portability. They want gadgets which they can carry comfortably. However, that is not the case with this gaming laptop. At the weight of 3,140g, and a dimension of 404 x 295.8 x 25mm, it would not be wrong to say that this is a heavy machine.

When compared to other gaming laptops, Dell G7 17 is relatively heavier. For example, the Lenovo Legion Y740 weighs 2900g with a dimension of 412 x 305 x 25mm. Moreover, it is heavier than the ASUS ROG GL704 which is measured to be 2900g with a dimension of 399 x 274 x 26.4mm.

Therefore, if you wish to travel with your gaming laptop, Dell G7 17 would not be the ideal choice for you.

Ports

Sometimes, the gamer wishes to expand the screen with an external monitor or wants to download an important update through a pen drive. How will he/she do it? This is the reason ports are essential in every gaming laptop and Dell has made sure to provide the user with literally every port you would possibly need or require.

To keep the mess of wires aside, Dell has implanted the majority of their ports at the back of the Dell G7 17. This way there will be minimal wire clutter on your desk and you would not lack attention while playing your important fixture. Due to the port placement at the back of the machine, the desk stays organized.

On the left side of the gaming laptop, you can see a USB Type-A port, audio jack, and another innovative Thunderbolt 3 port.

On the other hand, the right side consists of an SD card reader and another Type-A port.

Moreover, the port section doesn’t end here. On the rear side of the gaming laptop, Dell has placed the Noble lock slot, an HDMI port, an AC Adapter, and a third USB Type-A port. Additionally, Dell has featured a mini-DisplayPort and gigabit Ethernet cable as well.

CPU Performance – Processor

Mainly, the performance or the processor of the gaming laptop determines its surviving ratio in such a competitive market. The manufacturers can never compromise on the quality of the processor as the cheap standard central processor would not last for a longer period.

Dell is offering the G7 17 variant with two configurations. One can be called a pocket-friendly variant and the other one would lie under the expensive category.

The budget-friendly variant is the 4-core Intel Core i5 8300HQ-processor that can provide a speed of 2.30 GHz and an 8MB cache memory. On the other hand, the expensive variant is the 6-core Intel Core i7 – 8750HQ-processor. It has a speed of 2.20GHz and a memory cache of 9MB.

To check the supreme quality of Dell G7 17, a Cinebench R15 test was performed on the expensive and top variant of this gaming laptop which is the i7 processor.

The result was not that satisfactory. The Dell G7 17 scored 164 points which are significantly lower than the points achieved by Razer Blade Stealth.

The competitor scored 174 points in the same test while being run with a Core i7 8565U-processor.

The average points every great gaming laptop should be able to gather is 172. However, Dell G7 17 was unable to do so.

Memory – RAM Performance

Do you know what is the coolest part of the Dell G7 17 memory? Dell has designed the laptop with two DDR4 slots – that means you can simply upgrade your memory if you wish to. You can increase it to 32 GB. Well, that would be a lot to accompany any heavy game of your choice.

We tested 16 GB of RAM – 8 GB on each slot to have an idea about the smoothness of the laptop. According to our research, 16 GB is enough to carry out every difficult or demanding task.

To check the comprehensive performance of the laptop. It was checked with multi-tasking. Alongside surfing, multiple web browser tabs were opened at the same time. One tab was running the heavy game file, and another tab was playing our favorite song. Fortunately, the laptop didn’t lag even once.

To examine the RAM performance even more accurately, we performed a PCMark 10 test. The Dell G7 17 produced 5289 points. When compared to other sharks in the tank, Dell fell short of Lenovo Legion Y740 – which scored 6053 points. Moreover, Dell G7 17 was not even close to the average bracket of points which is 5533.

Storage Options and Performance

The Dell G7 17 is designed in a way that it supports multiple drives. This gaming laptop consists of a regular SATA connector for HDDs and an M.2 NVMe slot for the SSDs. It is recommended to opt for the Dell G7 17 models that come with an SSD storage option. Due to the higher storage capacity of 128 GB to 2 TB, it would be great for you.

On the other hand, Dell G7 17 variants are also produced with HDD storage. According to our research, the standard capacity of HDD storage is 1 TB – 2 TB.

Nevertheless, it is pretty common to get your hands on the Dell G7 17 variant which has both; SSD and HDD storage. While having several storage configurations, as a user you can choose your desired storage needs. Furthermore, if your requirement for storage increases, you can simply add or upgrade the drives.

An additional source of transferring data has been installed in the Dell G7 17. You can make use of the SD Card Reader to transfer your important documents or game files into the machine. However, the speed of shifting data is relatively slow when compared to other gaming laptop giants available in the market.

For example, we transferred 1 GB of pictures from the laptop to the SD Card. The Dell G7 17 took around 36 seconds to complete this task with a speed of 28.2Mbps.

Contrarily, the Dell XPS 15 9570 worked at a faster rate. That specific laptop copied the same amount of material in less than 8 seconds with a speed of 176.6 Mbps. Well, that is a significant difference.

The SD card is not the only source for transferring data. To focus upon the main component of relocating information or data, the speed of SSD and HDD cards was also checked. A test was performed with CrystalDiskMark to obtain accurate results.

The SSD was able to secure a read speed of 924.7 Mbps and a write speed of 230.4 Mbps. Similarly, the HDD recorded a read speed of 135.9 Mbps and a write speed of 132.7 Mbps.

However, if we compare it to other competitors from the gaming industry, the results obtained by Dell G7 17 are not that good. The SSD and HDD are working at a slower pace.

Graphics Card

Dell has provided multiple options for the gaming card. Just like various processor and storage options, you can opt for different graphic cards for your gaming laptop. Whenever you purchase a Dell G7 17, the company installs an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU graphics card which has a 4GB GDD45 memory in it.

Moreover, if you believe that this graphic card isn’t sufficient, you can also opt for the Nvidia GeForce GTX 2060 GPU that contains 6GB GDDR6 memory. The variety doesn’t end here, you can upgrade your gaming laptop with Nvidia GeForce GTX 2070 GPU and Nvidia GeForce GTX 2080 GPU which have relatively high performance and memory in it. The choice is entirely up to you.

To determine the GPU performance, we carried out a 3D MARK 11 test accompanied by Nvidia GTX 2070 GPU. The laptop was able to secure 17,466 points which are relatively lesser than the average 17,489 points.

Moreover, to check the advanced settings, we tested the gameplay performance of the laptop with The Witcher 3 at different settings and resolutions of 1080p.

When the game was played on high settings, it provided 113.5 fps, and at medium settings, the game played at 165.1 fps.

This much speed cannot be considered ideal for a gaming laptop but the machine didn’t stop with or lagged with any game or test.

Battery Life

You cannot sit on a chair and play your favorite game for continuous hours. You might want to relax on your bed while playing, to focus on the game. The Dell G7 17 is equipped with a 60Whr Lithium polymer battery that can survive for 7 long hours with standard usage.

We performed a test to check the battery life of the gaming laptop. The test included 120 nits of brightness and 70 websites were opened simultaneously. Nevertheless, the Dell G7 17 topped the test and lasted for around 7 hours and 50 minutes. Well, that is quite amazing!

According to our research, the closest gaming laptop was the ASUS ROG STRIX GL704 which lasted for 5 hours 45 minutes under the same settings.

The battery performance of the Dell G7 17 is quite impressive when compared to other gaming laptops and it is brilliant for a 17-inch heavy laptop.

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